生存之道

在监狱里面的生存之道是一门很深奥的学问，大概这辈子也无法有人能够透析。这学问大体上要分狱警的角度和囚犯的角度。一个称职的狱警要了解囚犯的角度，所谓安分守己的犯人要了解狱警的角度。往往双方都要游走在两者之间存在的无人之地，却得坚守着自己的岗位。

那硝烟弥漫的无人之地，就是合作与对立共同存在的地方。

每日语录（十九）：不存在的人

我：*在一个 bitching session，花了 20 多分钟来数落一名下属*

同居密友：那这个人叫什么名？这样我知道以后要闪他！

我：*沉默了 10 秒钟* 我忘记他的名了！

Moral of the story: 没有用的人不值得我记住他的名字！

不同

昨日，阿德和我说了一些话；他好不容易卸下心防，说了一些接近心底的话。虽然话不多，但还发人深醒。

但是还是先说一说一点背景故事，一段发生在两个多礼拜前的对话。

当时我和同居密友说了我一些夸张的生意点子，后者听了只是落下一句：“那你和阿德有什么不同？”（阿德是少数不是因为嗜毒而进来的囚犯。）

其实我一直以为阿德同我有共同点，而且我还相信那是我选他的其中原因。同居密友一言惊醒梦中人，我愕然发觉我们不只是一点点相似而已！

阿德昨天告诉了我抑郁在他心中的愤怒，那他对生命的不满。他告诉我他历经的人生转捩点，和他面对现时状况所持有的不平衡感觉。

当他告诉我那些话的一霎那，我感觉到内心的极大回响，仿佛我回到了几年前那历经被亲人离弃时所感受到的愤怒，那渴望周遭事物能够瞬间改变的感觉。我经历了一段痛苦的挣扎，最后下定决心改变人生。

从此，我不再回头。

我当然非常渴望分享我的心路历程，但是那是一段几经多段曲折的路，我就算想要解释也不知道从何说起。

我聆听了阿德的话，后来发现，对！我不应该说太多！处理压抑在他心底的悲愤的最好方法，其实就是让他先通过象昨天那样平静的管道来发泄出来。

这是人生的又另一堂课。

U.S Trip: Boston

I just arrived in Boston, and the 10-deg weather, beautiful architecture and fashion-minded people just made me feel the trip was all worth the trouble and money!!

Before I boarded the plane at SG, I really thought I was too impulsive to have included Boston in my itinerary just cos I wanted to visit the place where Ally McBeal stayed, cos other than that, there was really no wow-factor in Boston. But then, Ally McBeal was what shaped my perceptions of life very early on, and this is really a pilgrimage I should undertake!

First, the hotel.

I’m staying at College Club of Boston (CCB…), which was a club meant for women, but a B&B for all. The place was built and decorated in High Victorian style and it was indeed very beautiful, in terms of decor for public areas and inside the rooms. In fact, there were so many decorative trinkets, I thought they just got in the way. haha!!

Because the hotel was built on a very old townhouse, the floors were creaky and the walls were not sound proof; I could hear my neighbour talking, the people walking along the corridor outside and the guests from the event room laughing (or should I describe as cackling??) loudly. I assumed the sounds I make (mostly the floor creaking) was heard throughout the whole hotel…

And since the decoration was made up to be Victorian-y, the room did not feel like a hotel room, except for the bed (duh!!). There was no TV, no fridge, no safe, and worst of all, not much place for me to hang my stuff. I ended up doing what I used to do in NS and hung my towel on the door of the open closet. After that, I began a process I called Singaporeanizing the once British room.

I started my full day in Boston with a trip to Starbucks. My recce trip the evening before (after I checked in to the hotel) had brought me to that outlet (I realized after a day that there was a Starbucks outlet round every corner… I then proceeded to walk down the avenue outside of my hotel, called the Commonwealth Avenue, with the cup of hot coffee in a cold morning.

By the way, an avenue, by strict definition, is a two-way road divided by a wide road divider, usually tree-lined. A street, well, is a one-way carriage and a boulevard a tree-lined street. I later realized that Boston seemed to be the dictionary for city features, perhaps due to the fact that it was one of the 1st cities in US. Further in this entry, I would explain how I come to this conclusion.

At the end of the avenue, I entered Boston Public Garden, followed by entering the Boston Common (the Central Park equivalent of Boston), where I took a picture so nice, I decided to use it to replace my current FB profile picture lol The park was a lovely place, but I believed the cold weather played a part hehe… Give me a hot and humid weather, and that park is cursed!

As planned, I then took a train (called T) up to Harvard University, where I took a tour to learn about the history of the university. The tour guide was a student from Harvard, and she gave many insights into the life of Harvard. The things she said was actually what I thought many ‘active’ NUS undergrad would say. Therefore, I tried to translate her descriptions to what I would experience, and decided that except for the rich history and architecture (actually most of the campus was made up of modern buildings), a Harvard life is no different from an NUS life — stress till graduation…

I also took a walk around Harvard Square, which was the shopping district in the vicinity of Harvard U. It was there I found a nice place to have the most gratifying lunch till date at US, even though it was simple fare. The food place was actually in a mart, whereby a section of it was allocated for the meals. The food was arranged a la lunch reception (think buffet, but not buffet, here’s why), whereby I could take whatever I want in any amount and I pay by the pound. The rate there was $7.95 per pound, and I ended up paying for $8.43. I had my protein load, as well as a good serving of healthy (steamed) broccoli

I quite like this idea, I wonder why this didn’t catch on in SG. I had seen a quite a number of such arrangement in DC and Boston, but they were mostly salad. This place, called Market at Harvard Square, had both salads and hot food. Perhaps this could be a good idea to bring into SG??

After Harvard, I went to Boston Public Library. The library was made up of 2 buildings, the original one, and a modern extension. The one that I visited was the old one.

The place was not as grand as Library of Congress, but still flavourful enough. There were plenty of wall paintings and statues. The highlight was the quaint courtyard. I actually thought it was the right size, big enough befitting a grand library (in olden days’ terms, this building was a grand public project), but small enough to provide a cozy feeling when sitting at the side. I took the time to do just that, sit at a corner to admire the view (actually, I was just plain tired from all the days of walking and there were these cosplay guys making a video over there for me to watch).

Following that, I popped by at Prudential Centre a few blocks away from the library to go up to the observation deck (called Skywalk) to have a 360 degree view of the city. It wasn’t until I arrived that I realized that there was a cosplay event held over there for Good Friday. That explained the weird characters at the library!!

The view up at the observation deck was stunning. I looked down at the city blocks below and realized they looked like what my SimCity would look like, if it was filled with medium-density housing. It was then I recalled that I had the same conclusion 15 years ago when I watched Ally McBeal and played SimCity. Apparently, SimCity being an American game, was modeled after American cities and since Boston is the 1st city in USA, its model and architecture became prevalent in the game!

MIT is between the 2 bridges...

I had wanted to go to North End of Boston, which was an Italian settlement and said to be where all the good food in Boston was. In fact, I wanted to go try the lobster, which was a signature of Boston. Upon reaching the station, I decided against the idea. Apparently, I still had to cross many roads before I reach North End proper, and that well… I could eat good food (including lobster) in SG. The only food I would purposely go after would be those I could not find in SG!!

So I decided to walk back to Beacon Hill, where Boston Common was. Alas! I did not have any maps with me so I ended up lost. I just randomly took a right turn after I finished the 1st street that I had ID-ed previously to be the one to take me in the right direction to Beacon Hill, but I ended up at the waterfront instead! In other words, I had walked in the wrong direction for the past 20 min!! My auto-GPS kicked in, and with my memory of the map of Boston, I wandered slowly back to the right course. However, I took in quite a lot of the city sights, with all the shops and housing and architecture. It was a very pleasant mistake indeed!!

I then proceeded to Massachusetts  State House, where a group of people were ‘Occupying Boston’ to demand free public transport. They had claimed that it was a basic human right to have free public transport, which made me like *rolls eyeballs*. Talk about welfare state…

Just further up, after turning into a more discreet part of Beacon Street, was the ‘exterior of Ally McBeal’s setting’. OK, apparently, Ally McBeal was fully shot in the studio in California, so the only authentic scenes were the shots of the exterior of buildings. 14 Beacon Street was one of them.

My remaining journey involved walking to find dinner, and then back to hotel. Of cos, halfway through, I decided to sit beside the park to take a rest and people watch again (my knees hurt!!). I was back at the hotel rather early, but oh well… I’m really exhausted (and still trying my best to recover from my flu) and my knees really needed plenty of rest if I were to survive this trip. Of cos, Boston really does not have any tourist-y locations that appealed to me, other than the cold weather and nice buildings, which I enjoyed thoroughly for the most of the day!!

U.S Trip: Washington, D.C

Going to New York was the dream of my life. Including stops like Washington, D.C was to make my trip more ‘value’. The reasons why I decided make the trip down to DC was that it was The Capital of USA and that the museums on the National Mall were very famous (it was the second museum I wanted to visit after The Louvre in Paris). After doing some research, I also concluded that I wanted to go to Pentagon (which was VERY nearby)… The centre of power, of cos I wanna go!! As such, my 3N trip was centred around these few objectives.

I divided my 2 full days at DC as such: Day 1 for super-tourist attractions and Day 2 for the not-so-touristy attractions. Therefore, it was only logical that I visited places like the Capitol on my 1st day.

However, after seeing the line of queue outside the entrance of Capitol Building (I was there at 8am), I decided to visit Library of Congress first. It would have been a terrific journey, if not for the fact that visitors were not allowed into the Main Reading Room. arrghhhh!!! I could only view it from the gallery one floor above and then no photography was allowed

The Reading Room would be a very conducive place for me to engage in creative activities indeed. Unlike our National Library, this reading room was decked with medieval statues and decors; the shelves were stories high and everyone could look up to the great dome. The level 11 of National Library does have high ceiling with bookshelves overlooking the study area, but the feeling was just not the same…

I returned to Capitol (dropping by Supreme Court to take a look from outside) to find the queue unchanged; it turned out the queue was for security checks and that I would just take about 15 minutes to go in. The security check was like the airport, so take note!

By the time I went in, the place was already SWARMING with people. ha!! The popular places I went to in China or Taiwan could not compare to this! I believe even Vivo City on weekend pales in comparison! There was nothing much I could do at Capitol, since the guided tour must be booked online (by the time I went to book last week, there were no more tickets) and that the exhibition was american-centric (I’m not that interested in American history…). I wandered about the vast Emancipation Hall (talk about emancipation! That was my resolution after I got my PB last week!!) and then decided to have an early lunch.

I bought a cake and a muffin at first. oh well… The cake was disgusting and so was the muffin. The cake was made from full cream milk, I think. As for the muffin, it was so sweet! Americans really eat very strong… I could not finish those anyways, so I bought myself a DC Dog in compensation (that made my 1st lunch in the US cost about $15). The dog was a saviour! After lunch, I shopped around the museum shop (to make sure I bought something to show I was there) and then went off down the mall.

My next destination was the Old Post Office, from which its tower provided a vantage point for the whole of downtown DC. Enroute, I went past the front of the Capitol and jumped into the garden (literally) in front of it to take pictures. As usual, I got quite lost on my way to the OPO; DC’s road junctions almost always have more than 4 roads converging and there were no proper road signs to indicate which road was which. haiz…!!

Old Post Office was also another disaster. The queue up to the tower was more than half an hour long; I don’t know which was worse, the tower queue or the queue beside it for Ben & Jerry’s. Apparently, Washington Monument, which was the other ‘observation deck’ was closed for repair after an earthquake last Aug, which diverted all the tourist crowd here. Thankfully, the view was gratifying; I could see all of downtown DC indeed and settled the need to go see FBI building (couldn’t go in anyways).

I dropped by the White House Visitor Centre, which was actually not very near White House; it was diagonally across the road junction where the front lawn (which was VERY BIG) of White House was. There was nothing much, except an exhibition to show the history of White House and what the interior was like. Unless we are allowed to tour the White House itself, and unless one wants to buy something representative of the White House (like me), the place was not worth visiting.

My next stop was supposed to be a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. But alas! the tickets were already out. I was very pissed, cos I took a very long walk down to BEP, only to find that I was on the wrong side of the building and had to walk all the way around (eh… that was a HUGE  building, OK). Dejected, I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival down at the Tidal Basin.

The Festival… erm… I guess cos the cherry blossoms were all gone (70% of full bloom occurred in 20-23 Mar), so there was not much crowd. Besides, there were only like 3 tents to start with, excluding the 1st Aid tent. ha!! As usual, I forced myself to go buy something to make the walk worthwhile.

I ended my 1st day with a walk and a dinner at Dupont Circle. It was supposed to come to life after sunset, but I was not interested to stay until then, cos my main objective was to avoid the evening rush hour. Dinner was at an organic bread place called Le Pain Quotidien. I chose this tartine with French ham. The ham was very salty, but it was OK. The cheese… I’ve had enough of cheese… There was this pickled cucumber that tasted like shit. yucks!! Smelly! Dinner was not gratifying, but oh well…

I started Day 2 with lots of unwillingness. I had walked so much on the previous 2 days that my knees were hurting. haiz… I made my way down to Pentagon to find the Pentagon Memorial (the only place down there I could take pictures), but oh… I could not find it. I looked like the only tourist amidst all the soldiers/executive/agent looking people going for their work (I was there at 8am), which made me feel so out of place and weird, so I gave up the search very early on. But at least I saw the Pentagon up close, so close, I could only see one of its walls.

My next destination was Smithsonian Castle. I was so tired that I decided to settle down for a cuppa coffee first. Alas! I found out that they provided free and good Wi-Fi, so I ended up uploading tonnes of pix I took the previous days. Pardon me, but the wi-fi at my motel sucked; I couldn’t even get proper weather updates!!

Smithsonian Castle was a bore, cos there was no ‘star exhibit’ over there, though I must admit its garden was landscaped very beautifully. I hopped over to the National Air and Space Museum. I was immediately put in awe by the models of various aircrafts hanging from the ceiling. Being the rational person, that initial feeling passed by very quickly and the increasing crowd and exhibits containing information I already knew (they were all about aerospace engineering, duh!!) put me off.

I had my 1st fast food meal at US (I wanted to eat at KFC, but apparently, KFC could only be found at ulu places in DC) at the Mac’s over there. Very gratifying… That was followed by watching an IMAX show (Hubble 3D) and a show at the Planetarium (Journey to the Stars). I would be impressed if I were 15 years younger, but oh well. The shopping at the museum store made up quite a lot of disappointed feeling, though.

The next stop was at National Gallery of Art. I didn’t have high expectations, after what I had experienced over the past few days and at the various museums. After all, I did not read of any masterpieces being shown in that museum. I was treated with a surprise, though. They had quite a number of Raphael’s, Monet’s, Van Gogh’s and Rodin’s works.

I was most excited about Rodin, cos it was the 1st time I had seen Rodin’s sculpture live. Technically speaking, it should be easy to view a sculpture of Rodin, cos his work was replicated many times, but this sculpture was from the time of Rodin, donated by one of his patrons who liked his work very much. I had a field day taking many pictures of his sculptures from various angles!!

My collection of weird art pieces...

My next part of the day was the long, arduous journey to Lincoln’s Memorial. There were so many detours along the way due to various renovation works taking place along the Mall, it added on to my frustrations. Then there were the incessant crowd and super sunshine… I was wearing a coat meant for a 10-deg weather under a 25deg sun!! haiz…

Lincoln Memorial was just that… Maybe I was just plain tired, I just took a picture with the statue of Lincoln and proceeded to sit at the steps in front and pretended to admire the Washington Monument ahead, when in actual fact, I was just staring into space and people-watching. I had to gather enough strength, cos I had to make the 1.6km walk to the nearest Metro station (Foggy Bottom at George Washington University) via a very long slope.

OK… I ended Day 2 quite early cos I had to put on muscle rub and recuperate for the remaining week!!

U.S Trip 1st Leg

Before I boarded the plane at T3, my Chief A sent me a well-wishing, containing something to the tune of ‘Enjoy your 24-hr lock up regime, with 2 hrs of recreation’, to which I replied, ‘Some more times 2!’. Chief A does come up with bits of literal jewels at times, but I particularly liked this double entendre in his wish.

Right now, I’m on the final leg of my plane trip to NYC, with just over 3 hrs to go, after spending my 2hrs of recreation at transit in Frankfurt Airport.
I had spent much of my 13hr journey to Frankfurt asleep (much against my plans made to overcome jet lag). The monotonous lull of movies on Kris World (or rather, the sad fate of me not being able to skip slow, boring parts) was the main culprit.

Frankfurt Airport, I had read from online reviews dated circa 2007, had a notorious reputation of unfriendly staff and confusingly huge complex. Like a member of a herd, I aimlessly followed my comrades who also made the 13-hr journey, down the endless hallways with minimal signs that bore only 2 important information: Baggage Claim and Flight Transfer. My experience as an intern in Changi Airport told me that because mine is a stop over flight, I should still end up in the same gate I came in. But being alone in a land where many people spoke in foreign languages, does make one’s heart cringe in fear of uncertainty.

Their security check was slow, but I could not determine if it was due to the thoroughness of the checks or the laissez faire attitude of the staff. To add a bit of spice to my trip, I purposely bought 1 German sausage to savor. Ha..!!! That sausage was so long, I almost could not finish!

Part 2 was spent in daylight. I was still sleepy/drowsy, but the sunshine was able to keep me awake. My meals on board were frequent and filling. I would still be on seafood meal on my return trip, but I hope they have more variety like noodles instead of omelette half the time…

~ ~ ~ the following was input at Penn Station, NY ~ ~ ~

JFK Airport was my next stop. Like what the pilot said, after we touched down, there was another half an hour of taxi-ing. Customs took another 45 mins; I was lucky that the officer for my queue was not demanding. He even told me he studied in Chung Cheng!!

As a form of social service, I shall also detail the time I took from after the customs to Manhattan Penn Station. I guess because the customs took a chunk of the time, so I was able to pick up my baggage almost the moment I was at the carousel. I also spent some time changing out of my SG national uniform (T-shirt + berms + slippers) into something that could withstand a new spring weather. All in all, it took me 15 min to reach the JFK Airtrain station after clearing the customs.

Jamaica Station, towards Penn Station

The trip to Jamaica train station took about 20 min. The payment was done at the ticketing machine after alighting. Because I wanted to take the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) , I chose the option to purchase the fare on the same ticket. All in all, I paid $11.25 for Airtrain ($5) and the express ticket to Penn Station through LIRR ($6.25 on weekday off-peak).

The trip down town took a mere 20 min (there were no stops in between). I had to take some time to orientate myself in Penn Station before I was able to find the Amtrak station to print my pre-purchased tickets. Basically, the LIRR, Amtrak and NJ Transit were all in Penn Station, but unlike King’s Cross station in London, there still had some walking to do. The signs were self-explanatory, though not well-placed imho.

When I reserved my Amtrak train tickets bound for Washington, D.C, I factored in a lot of buffer time because I did not know how long it would take me to reach the train after ETA. My flight was not delayed, so I landed around 10.15am. By the time I reached Penn Station, printed my tickets and was standing there waiting for the track number for the next Acela Express (the train I was taking) train to appear (macam wait for 4D like that), it was around 12.45pm. 2.5hrs is a good estimate, though we could not really be sure of delays and such. 3pm, although resulting in me typing out my entry at a fast food joint, was a good conservative timing (which was also cheaper because it was an off-peak timing).

~ ~ ~ the following part was input after checking in to hotel ~ ~ ~

The later part of the trip was such a downer, I don’t know how to put it. I KO-ed on the train and couldn’t really wake up until I was nearly at Union Station. Union Station was another confusing place whereby the signs put up (in view of the on going renovation) was half-half. They pointed me to one direction without telling me if I needed to turn anot. My instinct failed me and the metro station turned out to be the last direction I turned to.

* after returning to Union Station to embark on my trip to Boston, I realized in horror that the signage that I followed was erroneous! After emerging from the subway, I found myself in a totally unfamiliar place, but the signs there clearly showed that was the place for me to take the Amtrak train to Boston.

Thankfully, the design of the station was such that there were only 3 ways I could go: back to the subway, out into the open and further into the station. After following the arcade of shops, I found myself in the familiar part of the station; the signs had directed me AWAY from the subway station on my 1st day! Monumental FAIL!! *

My choice of transport also ended up in a junction of many roads (by 2nd day, I grew to realize D.C’s metro stations’ exits always lead out into a multi-road junctions). Yes, it was not a normal 4-way junction, but with at least 6 roads converging right outside the station exit. Much as I tried to translate the map by the side of the road, I still ended up in the opposite direction. After more than a block, my instinct kicked in, realizing that the setting sun was on my right instead of my left. But that streak of good luck…. haiz…

the image on the left was the flea market by the station on Wednesday evening; the remaining 2 are taken enroute my hotel, of the quaint neighbourhood

What followed after was more than half an hour of tugging at my heavy luggage (it didn’t help that my luggage was the ali-baba-trolley-bag) traversing through quaint (but isolated) residential neighbourhoods. I kept wondering which would give way first, my tired hands or the army guaranteed plus chop wheels on my bag. After a long arduous journey (which included running over a dead mouse carcass), I came to the notorious slope of my motel. It was then I realized why the reviewers were so negative about the slope; it was even steeper than any slopes I had to run up in army or prison training!!

The evening took a less tedious turn. After throwing my luggage in the room (the motel was prepared; I got the keys to my room almost instantly after I filled up my particulars), I went to explore the neighbourhood the motel was in. There was nothing fancy; 2 shopping strips a bus stop apart. The nearer one was called Lee Centre (named after the highway outside the hotel) and there were 2 hot food outlets (Chinese and Pizza Hut). The rest of the stores, including those across the highway, were service related.

Inns of Virginia, Arlington (abode while at Washington D.C)

Lyon Village

I preferred the further one, called Lyon Village. There were actually 3 marts in a neighbourhood with a population density of a HDB block, I guess. OK… so the reason why I liked that place were the marts. It meant that I could stock up on plain water (budget hotels are… well, budget) and food ration.

By the time I returned to my motel, it was already dark. The place was quiet, but I didn’t feel danger. I read from online reviews that the neighbourhood had low crime rates, so I guess that was why I felt secured. But well, with my motel at least half an hour to D.C’s National Mall, it would be hard not to return late, right?

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