My Wonderful Life in the United States

I am in the United States for almost 4 months for Summer and Fall semesters.

I did a lot of travel in Summer and prior of the Fall semester.

I went to a couple of places in USA.

In July, I went to Minnesota, Illinois (Chicago) and of course the nice places around in Wisconsin. I would say the country name instead of the city name because they are a lot of cities that I have been to.

In August, our summer program has ended but UGRAD students had to go for a bridging course before Fall semester starts. However, I proposed a plan to everyone, just 5 of us (Plus a China girl), to travel to California. We did a great job in discussing the learning hours with our Professor and made this plan to a success. 2hours class per day became 3hours. We managed to stay in Los Angeles for a week!!

In Los Angeles, it was the best trip that I ever had. Before we went there, I was expecting to make the trip perfect as we got the break from Professor and we have to attend the class a little bit longer each day. I was crazy in searching for places, looking for recommendations online. I borrowed Los Angeles Travel Guide from my University library for that. I was pretty serious about it, wasn't I?

We met great people in Los Angeles and it made our trip cost much cheaper that it was. They are Saintsan's Uncle, Saintsan's Uncle's friend (Mr. Cornel), and their family.

We went to Anaheim Disneyland and California Adventure Park at the first day. We booked two nights in a hotel in Anaheim, Orange County. The interest thing part was I got premium Disneyland and Hopper park tickets for only 50bucks!! I got it from eBay. The ticket was great as we can use it to reserve a ride.

Besides Disneyland and California Adventure Park, we went to Universal Studios Hollywood on the second day. We spent our whole day there. I bought a discount coupon from eBay too! I got 18bucks off from each tickets. We paid for 51bucks instead of 69bucks. The best thing was the coupon can be used by anyone, you need not to be a Californian in order to use the ticket! It was great!! That was my little intelligence!! We saved a lot!!

The third day, we went to Downtown Los Angeles! That day was a free day! We planned it ourselves and I made my step to Staples Center, LA (Lakers Home Stadium). It was a great timing!! We reach there about 10am and there was an event there. I joined the 3points shoot-out competition and I got a new nickname called TOKYO GUY there. I made a great first shot and the DJ kept praising on me. It made everyone knows who is TOKYO GUY and after the game, a lot of people called me TOKYO GUY when I was walking around in Staples Center.

After Staples Center, we went to Hall of Fame, Hollywood, ThaiTown, ChinaTown, MexicanTown, Disney theatre, and other places that we could reach by Subway.

We went to Getty Museum and Santa Monica Beach on the next day. We walked around Santa Monica beach and did some shopping at Third Street Promenade. Thanks so much to Uncle Cornel who brought us to all those places. In LA, you need a car in order to go to such fantastic places. To get there by bus, you will spend half of you day in LA!! By cab, it will be freaking expensive!!

A brainwave was suggested by Uncle Cornel. "I would strongly recommend you guys to go to Las Vegas while you are in Los Angeles! It was just 4hours drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas by car." If we were unable to book a bus ticket, Uncle Cornel would drive us there, he said! We booked our hotel the day before and the bus tickets 2days before. (When we were in Universal Studios)

It was totally exceeded my expectations and my desires. My utilities have been fulfilled freakingly!! I didn't expect we would happen stepping in Las Vegas! By taking the bus to Vegas, it was a bus company operated by Chinese. 90% of the passengers are Chinese. I was just like in Hong Kong or a bus to Genting in Kuala Lumpur. What the heck... everyone was talking in Cantonese!! Some old folks, aunties and uncles were gossiping about the latest entertainment news in HongKong. I couldn't believe my eyes!! I sat with a chinese girl, named Lisa and we talked with each other in Chinese too. We have had a fun time in Vegas.

Accidentally, some unexpected incident happened in Vegas. The personnel in the bus told us that if we happened in The Venetian Las Vegas, we would get a 50USD gambling voucher, provided that you are 21 years and above. Without hesitation, I raised my hand and we were gonna hit The Venetian as our first station!! Why I said it was unexpected incident? It was really great to me as my favorite place in Macao is The Venetian!! I have been to Macao 2 years ago with my parents and my brother. I like that place very much!! It is so beautiful!! The Venetian Vegas is the same as Macao, just Macao is the newest one.

To be frank, I know how to gamble and I sneaked into the casino in Genting Highlands, Malaysia a couple of times. I went to the casinos in Macao too. Sneaking into casinos in Malaysia because I was not at legal age yet!! I turned 21years old in the United States and I made my visit to Vegas when I was 21years old and 1 month!!! It would be a fantastic memory for me forever!!!

I like to play baccarat and blackjack in Malaysia. Anyway, in Las Vegas, you would hardly find a small table with trends and records computer board in Baccarat. So, I made up my mind and decided to play just blackjack!! They have a lot of blackjack tables as compared to Genting Highlands and Macao. I won about 300+ USD around 2-3am in the morning. It was a lot!!! But my friend and I decided to keep gambling and visiting all the casinos in Vegas. We gambled till 5am in the morning and we got nothing left!! We didn't lose nor win!! We bought ourselves some drink in casinos with the winnings.

The next day, my hands were so "itchy" and my greedy devil told me to play before heading back to Los Angeles. I lost 100bucks in just 30minutes. I was so depressed and felt so blue. An hour before the bus came, I was trying to fight back and yes I made it! I turned 100usd to 300usd in just 15minutes in a blackjack table. My stakes were higher than everyone in the table. My highest stake was 60usd and I got a blackjack! That was why the turnover was so fast!! I won back my capital and the another 100bucks was my friend because we were sharing 50-50 of the capital.

Forget to talk about the hotel. The hotel rate in Vegas is freaking cheap! 70usd a night and I could get a double bedroom in Flamingo Hotel Casino. I paid for the freaking retarded hotel at Anaheim for 60bucks per night! I am willing to pay extra 10bucks for a higher class hotel in Vegas.

After we went back to Los Angeles, we had a great dinner (well, actually we did almost everyday in LA) with Uncle Cornel. The last dinner was our turn to treat Uncle Cornel as he treated us to lunch/dinner/supper and be our tour guide for those few days. He is really a great tour guide, if he were not a CAD designer, he would be the best tour guide in the States and Thailand too. (He likes to go to Thailand, he visits there almost twice a year)

3 and half hours flight from CA to WI. Say bye to California!! I like California so much!! If I would have to choose where to migrate to (in USA), my first choice will be in California. They have 6-8 Chinatowns (HongKong, Taiwan, China) and my mom is able to communicate with them!! She can speak Taiwanese with them too!!!