keep believing

me taken by me at the staircase of san fransisco museum of modern arts
i know it’s like what a place to take pictures of yourself.. but this picture is almost like a piece of modern arts right, so it’s not so wrong afterall ;)

so i’m in san fransisco now. left yellowstone four days ago, and so far, to me, nothing beats my yellowstone experience yet. san fransisco is a nice bustling city, but i think i like yellowstone better.

my last few days in yellowstone, i spent half a day in old faithful inn with my books and thoughts, saw daisy and castle geysers erupt, fooled around on my last day of work, had nice talks with different people, went to the tetons, again, for a hike (and again, the tetons is freakingly freaking awesome!), went to lake to row boat, had a good dinner treat and a fun-turned-to-boring party at the pub, and a rush packing and last minute shopping! i was so busy i didn’t have time to be emo about leaving yellowstone.. but i did shed some tears on the bus and almost refused to sleep on the bus because i still wanted to see more of yellowstone.

anyway, san fransisco was a lot of fun too. so far we’ve had shopping, chinatown, chinese food, fisherman’s wharf, crookedest street, ghirardeli square, museums (oh i love love the legion of honor!), and a lot of subway the sandwich.

will blog more when i have time, probably in pictures. i’ve got my camera now, remember? ;)

tulips for sherly, can’t deliver them to your doorsteps though ;)

and..

oh yes i ♥ sf, the one here in america and the one in malaysia!

it’s time for me to leave..

old faithful @ yellowstone, in 30 seconds

work fun; pictures pasted on the glass window of the office in the kitchen

see you again yellowstone!
you will be missed ;)

-

btw, my updated itinerary for the next three weeks:
19-23july san fransisco baby!
24-27july los angeles
28july-1aug new york, new york..
2-3aug washington dc
4-6aug boston
7aug new york again

look at him, he’s praying..

shame on me, besides saying grace before meals, i haven’t done much praying these days..

-

btw i saw another chipmunk earlier in the day, he came and stood less than a metre away from me, just to.. pee!

i’m still not used to having a camera..

camping at the tetons, taken by nokia phone

there were 18 people and six tents on the camping trip. the scenery was so pretty i wish i had my camera then. a friend helped me got the camera only on the day i went to tetons. a friend said: the tetons is the prettiest thing on earth.

picnic after white water rafting

we had the rafting at gellatin river. it was like a work outing since i went with 17 people from work. was supposed to be working on that day, but gave away my shift to a coworker, resulted in me having five days off this week.

near the rafting site. see closer.. that’s the moon! at 2 pm! and apparently it’s normal here.

seasoning for popcorn

i was like asking if they have sweet or salty popcorn before i saw this. they have melted butter too!
it’s interesting how you can watch any movie you like and stay in the cinema the whole day here just by buying one ticket. nobody guards the entrance.

after the movie, before chinese food

half of us watched wall e, and the other half, wanted. i love the chinese food, though it was kinda oily.

pretty pretty chef salads

happy pantry friends and blair

picnic at lake, i’ve never seen so much mosquitoes before in my life!

by yellowstone lake, with jessica

yellowstone’s yellow bus, for firehole basin adventure tour

old faithful erupted, just before we left for the tour..
and when we returned from the tour!

geysers predictions, remember we just predict, we don’t schedule

after the tour, i went to check this at the visitor center. i wanted to see grand geyser, the tallest predictable geyser! it was predicted to erupt at 12 pm (minus plus 1 1/2 hour). i reached there around 2 and it hasn’t gone off yet. people were already grumbling and started leaving, some of them were there since 10am!

it finally blew at 3 something. twice. and nice.

grand geyser!

the sun was mean, i got sunburnt. the tan line on my lower back has a shape of a thong. it’s just too weird.

guy: what’s your name?

me: erlin.

guy: again?

me: erlin.

guy: early? like early morning?

me: yes. with an N at the end..

guy (apparently not listening to me): nice to meet you, early!

me: err.. nice to meet you too.

-

guy: hey everyone, meet early…..

everyone: hi early!

me: …

been busy the past few days. after camping at the tetons, i had work, rafting, movie (wall e!) and chinese food at bozeman, overnight cleaning shift, work, farewell party at the pub, work, picnic at lake, work. back to back, in less than a week. the result: exhaustion and deprivation from sleep.

btw now i have a new camera nikon coolpix usd180, and one less roommate.

woohoo ;)

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
- Isaiah 55:10-11

the story started when i asked a friend at work to take me to the church at west yellowstone she and her group of friends go to every sunday. i hadn’t been in any church for two months! she said yes, and she invited me to join them for a camping trip to the tetons the next day. i’d never gone camping before, i thought i never would!

it was funny how, prior to the trip, i received three different lists of things to bring and a lot of advice from the more experienced people. they were more worried than i was about the trip. i didn’t know camping is a serious business, there are all these precautions to keep the bears away! a fed bear is a dead bear.
the last thing on one of my lists was: diego. he put his name there because he wants to go but he can’t. that’s too funny.

we were fetched on saturday afternoon to the church, which surprise, surprise, is the exact same church that erwin and i visited weeks ago when we were at west! i love the church, small and warm :) it’s just too bad they would have no space if the church is to grow, they should have a bigger building. they have rooms at the basement for us to spend the night in and homemade peanut butter cookies which are very very good. we had bbq for dinner and mexican for supper. watched part of the goofy movie but i went to sleep early as i was really tired.

sunday was a busy day. we started with sunday school for adults, and it was church service afterwards, which i found pretty different, warmer and noisier and less orderly.. it’s the beauty of diversity. the church is baptist btw.

we left the church with our lunch boxes. i left in this guy’s truck which was very comfortable that i slept almost the entire three hours journey! don’t ask how i slept.
and off we went on the hike from jenny lake. the hike up was 7-8 miles long. it was not that hard, but it was my first time hiking with such a heavy backpack that is fatter than i am! tetons is really really pretty. we hiked through a lot of mountains and streams and snowmelts and forests and waterfalls and meadows. saw three moose and three deers in total (i missed the cinnamon bear!).
and we sang: the hills are alive..
it indeed reminded me of the scenes from the sound of music and heidi.

we reached the campsite just before dark, almost dying, cold and tired. half of the site was covered by snow, and we were surrounded by mountains. we set up our tents, ate our dinner, and went to sleep immediately.. and it rained. it was already so cold at night, and our tent was dripping on us, we were drenched! i didn’t sleep very well. the bathroom btw is the best, you do it in nature, behind the trees and a little away from the campsite. how memorable.

in the morning we had a day-hike to lake solitude to have devotion time there. i was all ready for the hike, except that i didn’t know that the the trail was sloping up and covered with snow, like all the way! and the scorching sun made it so much worse, as its light got reflected on the snow. halfway the hike, i collapsed and a couple of nice strangers gave me a can of pineapple juice and mnm’s to make me feel better. decided to return to the campsite as i still had 8 miles back to do later on.

going down was obviously so much easier. but a girl and i took a ten minutes ride on a boat across jenny lake in replace of the last two miles hike, and that’s how i missed the bear. at the end of the hike, everyone was very tired, all the guys were limping!

we went to jackson hole for dinner, where i had a salmon roll and fake shrimp tempura for 13 bucks. sushi is really expensive here and it wasn’t even that good. had dairy queen’s strawberry cheesequake blizzard for dessert.

the bunch of americans i went with are really fun. before meeting them, i was close to thinking that summer for americans is all about drinking and smoking and partying and fooling around..

saw these words on the plaque in the church’s restroom. the same one that piper mentions in his book.
Only one life,
‘Twill soon be past;
Only what’s done
for Christ will last

i received this email a few days ago, a reminder that school is waiting for me back in singapore (as if i will ever forget)

…, we strongly urge you to focus all your attention on your academic pursuits and strive to do your best in the coming examinations. You must seek the advice of your lecturers/tutors at the university to address whatever problems you face in the subjects you are studying. You are also expected to attend all lectures, tutorials and lab sessions.

We wish you all the best in the coming semester.

well, i do too.

so the past few days, i went on a tour about old faithful inn’s parkitechture and a short, wet, crappy tour in yellowstone’s yellow bus. watched girl, interrupted and devil wears prada, which are very different and i love them both. went to the pub for the first time (the zeroth time i went there was to have a training in the middle of the day..), because my two roomies have a free pizza coupon each due to their outstanding achievement at work. i don’t have any. we had pizza and nachos.

despite the very much reduced number of stuff that i have here, i’m still as messy as ever. a colleague was saying that he always makes his bed because when he was young, his grandma would hit him if he didn’t. maybe i didn’t get beaten enough. or perhaps, i’m a pig.