- The Tarantula Train Ride
- Training facility
- Another set of photos from when we went to a FANCY dinner at Antares Restaurant at the Reunion Tower in Dallas. It's actually a ball at the top of a tower which rotates....you would think the Americans didn't have to copy our KL Tower!
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Sunday, July 18, 2004
So my last post I was drooling over Six Flags Over Texas. Well, let's see what happened.
First of all, we were off bright and early (9.15am) on Saturday morning but since we were in need of a few more souvenirs, we decided to detour to the great happy place called the Trader's Village n Grand Prairie. Those of you friends who have been regularly checking up on my activities will recall that we had visited this great happy place before! Well, yeah! And we loved it. That's why we're going back!
We had a half hour tops to get the essentials we needed cos we wanted to get into Six Flags early to 'beat the crowds'. Well, you know what.....we arrived at the flea market at 9.45am, not all shops/traders were ready but we managed to finish 10.30am and off we went to the nearby Six Flags (am I mentioning it too much? Don't really know why.....)
So anyway, there we were on the road and lo and behold, we get stuck in a traffic jam - a mini one compared to those in Penang and KL. But nonetheless. So, I started trying to be helpful in a Malaysian way - started suggesting that the driver get into a turn left lane (which was empty) to drive all the way to the top of the road so that he could then cut into the right lane which would allow us to drive straight onto the road that leads to the playground of playgounds! Unsurprisingly, he said no and so did his other American co-driver (direction giver)!
So, after a longggg queue into the parking lot (Premium Lots sold out!!!!...think they're those closest to the entrance) and a bit of patience, we were off to buy tickets and into the park we went! We established a meeting point at 4pm, this with us arriving at 11am and I kinda looked incredulously at John because all sorts of thoughts were running through my head! The main one being that, "We're never gonna finish this park by 4pm!!! Are you crazy?!!!"
Well then, anyway, we split up and the first one Jothee and I queued up for was THE TITAN.
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/overtexas/Rides/titan.html
Towering 255 feet above the earth, the muscular steel superstructure features one of the world's mightiest drops at hyper speeds of 85 miles an hour. One hundred feet taller than the legendary Texas Giant, Titan is faster than strikes of Zeus' lightning and features over a mile of twisted steel with huge sweeping spirals. A full three-and-a half minutes of spectacular plunges, a 120-foot long tunnel shrouded in total darkness, a series of camel back hills, huge spiral curves, and high-speed helixes are only some of the things you could look forward too
You know they report 1600 rides per hour; which means with the 1.5 hours I was in queue for the ruddy ride (alliteration!), 2400 rides were played out!
On to the Roaring Rapids cos Jothee wanted to get wet! (It isn't even on Six Flags list of rides??!) Anyway, it's one of those where you sit on a great big gloat with 9 other people and float along a river where you encouter swells and waterfalls and you get wet! It was fun.
Next, was Batman! http://www.sixflags.com/parks/overtexas/Rides/batman.html
This is Batman's newest crime-fighting device, Batman the Ride opened in 1999. An 'over too quick ride for the 1 hour 15 min wait' thrill which, although quite exciting with dangling feet and 360 degree turns with your feet meeting the sky and sudden twirls, this ride made me wonder if the entire wait was really worth it. It was all of 10 seconds it felt like and after the Titan, it was quite tame.
And that was all we had time for! Can you believe it - 3 rides in 5 hours. We stopped for lunch. Got lost for 2 minutes, bought a 3 dollar bottle of Coke and went home. It definitely didn't feel as magical or wondrous as Disneyland. Like I was telling a friend, Disneyland draws you in to this whole new world with its magics and characters and dreams. You feel as if anything could come true here. But Six Flags doesn't aspire for that kind of an experience. It feels like it just wants to show you the rides, let you experience queuing up and then you get on the rides and you should be happy. It made me feel it was very commercial whereas in Disneyland, you didn't mind spending the astronomical amounts of money they wanted from you and you were happy to take your wallet out - cos how on earth could you live without that, or this, or that!
Six Flags the Summary - too much expectation, too little time to actually truly find out if they were justified. At this point in time, my feelings are, you should splurge for a Q-Boat (fast-track to the rides) otherwise, it ain't veryveryvery worth it!
Oh, by the way, it was blistering....or as some would it, ' Hotter than a Wh*re in Church'. Hehehehe....thought that was fun!
Adios!
First of all, we were off bright and early (9.15am) on Saturday morning but since we were in need of a few more souvenirs, we decided to detour to the great happy place called the Trader's Village n Grand Prairie. Those of you friends who have been regularly checking up on my activities will recall that we had visited this great happy place before! Well, yeah! And we loved it. That's why we're going back!
We had a half hour tops to get the essentials we needed cos we wanted to get into Six Flags early to 'beat the crowds'. Well, you know what.....we arrived at the flea market at 9.45am, not all shops/traders were ready but we managed to finish 10.30am and off we went to the nearby Six Flags (am I mentioning it too much? Don't really know why.....)
So anyway, there we were on the road and lo and behold, we get stuck in a traffic jam - a mini one compared to those in Penang and KL. But nonetheless. So, I started trying to be helpful in a Malaysian way - started suggesting that the driver get into a turn left lane (which was empty) to drive all the way to the top of the road so that he could then cut into the right lane which would allow us to drive straight onto the road that leads to the playground of playgounds! Unsurprisingly, he said no and so did his other American co-driver (direction giver)!
So, after a longggg queue into the parking lot (Premium Lots sold out!!!!...think they're those closest to the entrance) and a bit of patience, we were off to buy tickets and into the park we went! We established a meeting point at 4pm, this with us arriving at 11am and I kinda looked incredulously at John because all sorts of thoughts were running through my head! The main one being that, "We're never gonna finish this park by 4pm!!! Are you crazy?!!!"
Well then, anyway, we split up and the first one Jothee and I queued up for was THE TITAN.
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/overtexas/Rides/titan.html
Towering 255 feet above the earth, the muscular steel superstructure features one of the world's mightiest drops at hyper speeds of 85 miles an hour. One hundred feet taller than the legendary Texas Giant, Titan is faster than strikes of Zeus' lightning and features over a mile of twisted steel with huge sweeping spirals. A full three-and-a half minutes of spectacular plunges, a 120-foot long tunnel shrouded in total darkness, a series of camel back hills, huge spiral curves, and high-speed helixes are only some of the things you could look forward too
You know they report 1600 rides per hour; which means with the 1.5 hours I was in queue for the ruddy ride (alliteration!), 2400 rides were played out!
On to the Roaring Rapids cos Jothee wanted to get wet! (It isn't even on Six Flags list of rides??!) Anyway, it's one of those where you sit on a great big gloat with 9 other people and float along a river where you encouter swells and waterfalls and you get wet! It was fun.
Next, was Batman! http://www.sixflags.com/parks/overtexas/Rides/batman.html
This is Batman's newest crime-fighting device, Batman the Ride opened in 1999. An 'over too quick ride for the 1 hour 15 min wait' thrill which, although quite exciting with dangling feet and 360 degree turns with your feet meeting the sky and sudden twirls, this ride made me wonder if the entire wait was really worth it. It was all of 10 seconds it felt like and after the Titan, it was quite tame.
And that was all we had time for! Can you believe it - 3 rides in 5 hours. We stopped for lunch. Got lost for 2 minutes, bought a 3 dollar bottle of Coke and went home. It definitely didn't feel as magical or wondrous as Disneyland. Like I was telling a friend, Disneyland draws you in to this whole new world with its magics and characters and dreams. You feel as if anything could come true here. But Six Flags doesn't aspire for that kind of an experience. It feels like it just wants to show you the rides, let you experience queuing up and then you get on the rides and you should be happy. It made me feel it was very commercial whereas in Disneyland, you didn't mind spending the astronomical amounts of money they wanted from you and you were happy to take your wallet out - cos how on earth could you live without that, or this, or that!
Six Flags the Summary - too much expectation, too little time to actually truly find out if they were justified. At this point in time, my feelings are, you should splurge for a Q-Boat (fast-track to the rides) otherwise, it ain't veryveryvery worth it!
Oh, by the way, it was blistering....or as some would it, ' Hotter than a Wh*re in Church'. Hehehehe....thought that was fun!
Adios!
Friday, July 16, 2004
Texas, Horses and Me: (Only in Texas)
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jrrphotos/album?.tok=phO.faBBDv6osMQ3&.dir=/de5e&.src=ph
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jrrphotos/album?.tok=phO.faBBDv6osMQ3&.dir=/de5e&.src=ph
Last weekend!
Last weekend we went horse-back riding! It was fantastic! Almost. It was very good, except that it would have been Fantastic if I had a runaway horse.....well, maybe not that dramatic, but a little trotting would have been fun. (John would have had his dream come true if I had a runaway horse!)
Although R.M., my horse, did try to trot a couple of times and I jerked up and down in the saddle like the amateur that I am.....and for the next two days, had a little trouble crossing my legs. It hurt!!!!!!!
View horseys from link above....
(So, the people in the horsey link are - Brandon the expert horse lead, the Malaysians - Zuraini, Errolyn, Vijay, Nagen and Jothee in that order, John R. our fantastic host and Palaton D. our torturing trainer*.)
So, that was for an hour and then we just came on back to the suite.
Next weekend will be our last and guess what! Look out Six Flags, here comes Errolyn!!!
* He likes making the trainers in this team suffer. He wants us to present material back to him so he can penalise us!!!!! Help!
Last weekend we went horse-back riding! It was fantastic! Almost. It was very good, except that it would have been Fantastic if I had a runaway horse.....well, maybe not that dramatic, but a little trotting would have been fun. (John would have had his dream come true if I had a runaway horse!)
Although R.M., my horse, did try to trot a couple of times and I jerked up and down in the saddle like the amateur that I am.....and for the next two days, had a little trouble crossing my legs. It hurt!!!!!!!
View horseys from link above....
(So, the people in the horsey link are - Brandon the expert horse lead, the Malaysians - Zuraini, Errolyn, Vijay, Nagen and Jothee in that order, John R. our fantastic host and Palaton D. our torturing trainer*.)
So, that was for an hour and then we just came on back to the suite.
Next weekend will be our last and guess what! Look out Six Flags, here comes Errolyn!!!
* He likes making the trainers in this team suffer. He wants us to present material back to him so he can penalise us!!!!! Help!
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Ok, so on July 5th, with it being a holiday an'all (some Texan there - yoo hoo!), a colleague from the office took us down to see Downtown Dallas. I guess alot of people mistake Lewisville for not being a part of Dallas (I know I did) but it is actually a suburb of Dallas and that is why the main city area is called Downtown Dallas and not just Dallas. It's also known as the Metroplex where there's a whole jumble of different people and culture so there isn't so much of a southern twang or drawl - more's the pity!
Anyway, Downtown Dallas was really hot. I kept thinking to myself that I wouldn't walk in this weather in Malaysia (and it truly felt like we were in Malaysia), why on earth am I walking now?? But anyway, we were visiting and walking's the best way to see and experience everything I guess.
So first we went to the grassy knoll. Which one? Well, m'dears, there's only one worth mentioning! The grassy knoll where JFK got shot near! We saw the 'X' printed onto the road to mark where his car was. There being 3 different locations where the 'X' and its predecessors were marked on really make you think though! Anyway, then we went to see the Sixth Floor Museum where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have shot from....we didn't actually pay money to go into any museums, including the Conspiracy Museum, which should have been fun.....but anyway, didn't think our hosts wanted to spend money wandering around local museums. So, some of us, I think , are going back there this SECOND LAST weekend to actually visit the museum!
I bought a magazine and had it autographed by the author/photographer which basically lamented the fact that a proper investigation was never carried out to break apart the conspiracy that shrouds JFK's murder! It was cool but rehashed a few photos and choice phrases besides showing a lot of zoomed in, and therefore, unclear photos.
We also saw City Hall, the Swanee Trail with its three different (white, black and Mexican - that's exactly how the guide explained it to us) cowboys running this herd of Longhorns. After which, we had lunch at this cool colourful Mexican place called Chuy's and then went 'shopping' at The Galleria! It is supposed to be a really cool upscale shopping complex where the rich folks visit but the only interesting thing I saw was the surprising presence of so many Asian faces! Waste of time.....
Then our very kind host took us home and cooked us.....dinner (Not cooked us, you sadist!) But anyway, he made a very nice simple Cajun dish with shrimp. We finally let our hosts be about half past nine when they sent us back to the hotel....the kind sirs! And then, the next day, there was 'school' again!!!!! Oh Lordy Help Me!
So, work is ok, people are really cool and nice, homecoming is coming and The Amazing Race 5 has started!!!!!!!! Go Military Dad and Go Sharla (?) Midget Woman! Go Down Pizza Brothers from Dallas!!!
Anyway, Downtown Dallas was really hot. I kept thinking to myself that I wouldn't walk in this weather in Malaysia (and it truly felt like we were in Malaysia), why on earth am I walking now?? But anyway, we were visiting and walking's the best way to see and experience everything I guess.
So first we went to the grassy knoll. Which one? Well, m'dears, there's only one worth mentioning! The grassy knoll where JFK got shot near! We saw the 'X' printed onto the road to mark where his car was. There being 3 different locations where the 'X' and its predecessors were marked on really make you think though! Anyway, then we went to see the Sixth Floor Museum where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have shot from....we didn't actually pay money to go into any museums, including the Conspiracy Museum, which should have been fun.....but anyway, didn't think our hosts wanted to spend money wandering around local museums. So, some of us, I think , are going back there this SECOND LAST weekend to actually visit the museum!
I bought a magazine and had it autographed by the author/photographer which basically lamented the fact that a proper investigation was never carried out to break apart the conspiracy that shrouds JFK's murder! It was cool but rehashed a few photos and choice phrases besides showing a lot of zoomed in, and therefore, unclear photos.
We also saw City Hall, the Swanee Trail with its three different (white, black and Mexican - that's exactly how the guide explained it to us) cowboys running this herd of Longhorns. After which, we had lunch at this cool colourful Mexican place called Chuy's and then went 'shopping' at The Galleria! It is supposed to be a really cool upscale shopping complex where the rich folks visit but the only interesting thing I saw was the surprising presence of so many Asian faces! Waste of time.....
Then our very kind host took us home and cooked us.....dinner (Not cooked us, you sadist!) But anyway, he made a very nice simple Cajun dish with shrimp. We finally let our hosts be about half past nine when they sent us back to the hotel....the kind sirs! And then, the next day, there was 'school' again!!!!! Oh Lordy Help Me!
So, work is ok, people are really cool and nice, homecoming is coming and The Amazing Race 5 has started!!!!!!!! Go Military Dad and Go Sharla (?) Midget Woman! Go Down Pizza Brothers from Dallas!!!
Sunday, July 04, 2004
THE WEATHER IS CRAZEEEEEEE and it's getting hotter and hotter! Today we went to the Stockyards in Fort Worth and it was a really cool place to spend the day! we didn't have much time though cos the train arrived there at 11.30pm and we had to catch the return at 2.30pm!!! so only bought a few things but cool ones so I'm happy!
I think it's called the Stockyards because people used to come and buy/sell/trade their animals here. We were meant to check out Billy Bob's which is a cool cool place for country and western stuff, all set with line-dancing I heard, but didn't see it cos we didin't turn down the road.....and anyway, there wasn't enough time. I would have loved to have spent the whole day there slowly cruising the area but I think we held up our host alot already! ;)
It was quite surreal there because the moment you get off the train, you're assaulted with shop after shop after shop of souvenirs and eateries. Then you get out on the road and what do you see, old style wooden saloons and people dressed up like the olden days! The whores and their cowboys, the policeman on the horse and the guy peddling his longhorn (bull/cow) for photo ops!
OOoh, another very exciting thing that happened, was that the Tarantula Railway got help up by three bandits (one looked Mexican!) when we were nearing the station at Fort Worth! They shot their pistols and rode their horses alongside the train and one of them actually got on!!!! We were told to scream our hearts out when they got on and so we did! It was really fantastic.
And on the way back, ..............we slept. Hahahahahhaaaa.....It was too hot to bother with anything else!
when we got back to lewisville and got into the car, we saw that it was 98 degrees Farenheit!!!! Woooweee! no joke. felt as hot as malaysia.
I think it's called the Stockyards because people used to come and buy/sell/trade their animals here. We were meant to check out Billy Bob's which is a cool cool place for country and western stuff, all set with line-dancing I heard, but didn't see it cos we didin't turn down the road.....and anyway, there wasn't enough time. I would have loved to have spent the whole day there slowly cruising the area but I think we held up our host alot already! ;)
It was quite surreal there because the moment you get off the train, you're assaulted with shop after shop after shop of souvenirs and eateries. Then you get out on the road and what do you see, old style wooden saloons and people dressed up like the olden days! The whores and their cowboys, the policeman on the horse and the guy peddling his longhorn (bull/cow) for photo ops!
OOoh, another very exciting thing that happened, was that the Tarantula Railway got help up by three bandits (one looked Mexican!) when we were nearing the station at Fort Worth! They shot their pistols and rode their horses alongside the train and one of them actually got on!!!! We were told to scream our hearts out when they got on and so we did! It was really fantastic.
And on the way back, ..............we slept. Hahahahahhaaaa.....It was too hot to bother with anything else!
when we got back to lewisville and got into the car, we saw that it was 98 degrees Farenheit!!!! Woooweee! no joke. felt as hot as malaysia.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
tomorrow i will be going on the tarantula railway which winds down from lewisville to the stockyards and there we're going to be going to billy bob's - a western, line dancing, country music place.....pity i don't have time to buy my boots yet! but that's for sat and monday (4th of july), one of the trainers from here will be taking us down to see dallas and cooking a home dinner for us!!!!!!!!! yippeeee.....looking forward to that!
also, as i said, final exams were today and i scored 100%%%%%%%%%!!!!! that kinda brought my average up to 98.9% over 5 tests....second highest.....even though in all 5 tests, i only made 2 mistakes.....1 was a michevious question and the other one was pure carelessness.....so anyway, there you go, second highest!
breakfast at the hotel is BORING with a capital B! They kinda switch the main dishes around so it's not statically the same everyday but even then, it's at least a repetition of the same thing at least 4 times a week! EEEKKK....help!
P.S. Haven't taken too many pics so....later ok!
also, as i said, final exams were today and i scored 100%%%%%%%%%!!!!! that kinda brought my average up to 98.9% over 5 tests....second highest.....even though in all 5 tests, i only made 2 mistakes.....1 was a michevious question and the other one was pure carelessness.....so anyway, there you go, second highest!
breakfast at the hotel is BORING with a capital B! They kinda switch the main dishes around so it's not statically the same everyday but even then, it's at least a repetition of the same thing at least 4 times a week! EEEKKK....help!
P.S. Haven't taken too many pics so....later ok!
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