Spontaneous trips are always fun with the exception of a failed attempt at watching the sunrise on Brooklyn bridge because I got ki. We visited NJ yesterday, or more specifically Princeton town! =D Hahahaha… fail for Harvard again. Princeton University is so pretty, and apparently it takes up half of the whole town lol. Since TL is familiar with Princeton town coz he did boarding school there for a few years, it was nice to know where to go and what to eat. He also showed us around his old boarding school for a bit. And there were fireflies plus fireworks nearby. How cool was that! Well it is the 4th of July weekend. Too bad I don’t have any plans. But long weekend is always good hehe.

First time taking a train from Manhattan. Past few times I sat a bus to get out of the city. And it was also the first time I witnessed a train conductor coming by to punch our tickets. Like omg.. haha. It’s just like the movies. These small little things you think are normal because you’ve seen them on tv before, it’s just more interesting when you go through the actual experiences yourself. Like an answering machine. We never have those back home. Yeah voicemail works fine, but our culture just doesn’t utilize answering machines. I’ve only ever seen them in American movies. Weird huh? Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe every other home has an answering machine but mine.

And as TL and Jd were chatting bout their old high school experiences, I realized I just couldn’t relate. My past just feels like a whole different world away compared to my life here. It even feels weird thinking back to realize that I had a past. Too far away. That’s why sometimes I like hanging out with a couple of Singaporeans for a bit. They like to think they are different from us, but they really aren’t that much. Otherwise I wouldn’t have the sense of home every time we converse together.

Oh my god. When is the last time I spoke to an actual Malaysian face to face? I even strive to hide my Malaysian accent here. Am I ashamed of it? As much as I’d like to say no, I can’t not say yes. When I’m back home I need that accent to survive because really, who wants to listen to some foreign snobbish angmoh accent? But here…. I feel inferior if I don’t speak like them. But the truth is my accent is neither here nor there. The Americans can tell I have a slight foreign accent but they can’t tell where it’s from. Separuh masak saja. Can’t go back yet can’t really go all the way. That’s how I’ve always been.

Yet, you learn to love life here. The materialistic capitalistic spend spend spend culture. The obsession with TV shows. The wide variety of Americanized food (Yes, I kinda like Americanized food now… lol!?!). I miss Asian food a lot coz I’m used to eating rice back home at least once a day. But you soon learn that American food is NOT all the same. Yes, potatoes are potatoes and fries are fries and burgers are burgers. But they taste different from restaurant to restaurant. Diner to diner. State to state. You can’t dismiss their cuisine like that just coz you think their foods are limited and all taste the same anyways. And the stupidest thing I’ve learned here? White people don’t all look the same. LOL.

Sigh… how much each culture doesn’t know about each other. It’s just so ridiculously weird and amazing at the same time.