nothing beats coming back home
after 29 hours - yes, TWENTY-NINE hours - which includes a total of 20 flight hours and 9 hours waiting time, i'm finally home. when being asked what was the thing i'd miss most about arizona, i gave it some thought and concluded that it has to be the people i've met, talked about and learnt from during the trip. no doubt the grand canyon was majestic, the heli-ride was an eye-opener and gave us an awe-inspiring view of the entire place, it's the people that left an impression - the technical folks we met from all over USA, the ever-so-friendly organisers and directors, and not forgeting those from our region who made up a tiny percentage at this international conference. we even had a prime rib dinner with mike & george from austin, texas. other than boring equipment talk, we chatted about singapore laws (you should see their faces when we mentioned about the death penalty for drug trafficking), the michael fay's canning case (which as opposed to what the media mentioned, most americans are in favour of it! can't trust the media, huh!), george's japanese wife and kids whom he missed dearly... it was a truly great night out.
it was also our pleasure to have met the kennedy family, who hosted us for an afternoon. kirk brought us for a drive along the apache trail - we passed the superstition mountains, stopping at the lost dutchman state park, canyon lake and tortilla flat for some sight-seeing and photo-snapping.
kirk and his wife, jeany, showed us around their beautiful home. although a tad untidy (i'm being nice here, considering they moved in three years back, haha), their place was incredibly HUGE, and it was a paradise for animal lovers. they've got a total of 12 animals - 3 dogs, 4 cats and 5 horses, and we eventually found out that it's jeany who's the pet collector, and kirk just "tolerates them". it costs US$85 for a farrier to shoe a horse, and this has to be done every 8 weeks - no kidding, no wonder jeany mentioned not to speak a word about this, haa! now you know who does the home finances. :-) jeany and kelly (their 17-year old daughter), prepared the bridle and saddle for our ride, and although it was just a couple of minutes, it felt real cool to be sitting high up there! dinner was at a italian place in scottsdale, just check out the size of that pizza, typically american sized! the dessert was absolutely divine - it's half a pound of macadamia and chocolate chip ice-cream over a huge chocolate chip cookie base, quite a good idea for house parties in future.
our day tour to the grand canyon - amazing view huh! imagine the beautiful layers of sedimendary rocks were created purely by the forces of nature, the erosion from the water and the wind over millions of years. there were only six of us in the mini tour bus, including two fellow singaporeans (see picture), led by kurk, our guide and driver for the day. there are simply too many pictures to put them all up here, so here's just a few of them. i'll probably put up a couple taken from the heli-ride later on. :-)
scribbled at 10:52 am
.::.
after 29 hours - yes, TWENTY-NINE hours - which includes a total of 20 flight hours and 9 hours waiting time, i'm finally home. when being asked what was the thing i'd miss most about arizona, i gave it some thought and concluded that it has to be the people i've met, talked about and learnt from during the trip. no doubt the grand canyon was majestic, the heli-ride was an eye-opener and gave us an awe-inspiring view of the entire place, it's the people that left an impression - the technical folks we met from all over USA, the ever-so-friendly organisers and directors, and not forgeting those from our region who made up a tiny percentage at this international conference. we even had a prime rib dinner with mike & george from austin, texas. other than boring equipment talk, we chatted about singapore laws (you should see their faces when we mentioned about the death penalty for drug trafficking), the michael fay's canning case (which as opposed to what the media mentioned, most americans are in favour of it! can't trust the media, huh!), george's japanese wife and kids whom he missed dearly... it was a truly great night out.
it was also our pleasure to have met the kennedy family, who hosted us for an afternoon. kirk brought us for a drive along the apache trail - we passed the superstition mountains, stopping at the lost dutchman state park, canyon lake and tortilla flat for some sight-seeing and photo-snapping.
kirk and his wife, jeany, showed us around their beautiful home. although a tad untidy (i'm being nice here, considering they moved in three years back, haha), their place was incredibly HUGE, and it was a paradise for animal lovers. they've got a total of 12 animals - 3 dogs, 4 cats and 5 horses, and we eventually found out that it's jeany who's the pet collector, and kirk just "tolerates them". it costs US$85 for a farrier to shoe a horse, and this has to be done every 8 weeks - no kidding, no wonder jeany mentioned not to speak a word about this, haa! now you know who does the home finances. :-) jeany and kelly (their 17-year old daughter), prepared the bridle and saddle for our ride, and although it was just a couple of minutes, it felt real cool to be sitting high up there! dinner was at a italian place in scottsdale, just check out the size of that pizza, typically american sized! the dessert was absolutely divine - it's half a pound of macadamia and chocolate chip ice-cream over a huge chocolate chip cookie base, quite a good idea for house parties in future.
our day tour to the grand canyon - amazing view huh! imagine the beautiful layers of sedimendary rocks were created purely by the forces of nature, the erosion from the water and the wind over millions of years. there were only six of us in the mini tour bus, including two fellow singaporeans (see picture), led by kurk, our guide and driver for the day. there are simply too many pictures to put them all up here, so here's just a few of them. i'll probably put up a couple taken from the heli-ride later on. :-)