Here are some of the photos taken during our trip to USA.

First stop - Orlando, FL
Stayed at I-Drive Inn for 4 nights.
Day 1 (30 May) - Magic Kingdom
Day 2 (31 May) - Epcot Centre
Day 3 (01 Jun) - Universal Studio
Day 4 (02 Jun) - Swimming & relax at hotel + stroll around International Drive area
Day 5 (03 Jun) - Flew to Buffalo



Second Stop - Niagara Falls & Toronto
Day 5 (03 June)
We flew to Buffalo on Day 5 where we met a Canadian friend, Mark. Mark has offered to drive us to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He used to work as a tour guide and has given us some real interesting backgrd info of Niagara Falls. He even made arrangements for us to stay on the 26th fl of Sheraton Hotel. The view of the falls from our room was awesome!



I took 4 pan shots and stitched into a panaromic shot. This was the view from our room!

Didn't bring a tripod so had to make use of the self-timer to capture the night scene of Niagara Falls. We were there on a Friday night and there was a fireworks display. But the mist spray and smoke sort of covered the sky above the falls. Could hear the fireworks but couldn't see much of anything else.






That's me and my family.


Day 6 & 7 (04 - 05 Jun ) : Toronto

Visited relatives staying in Toronto.

They treated us to a dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Where else?

That's me. The one wearing white with the long hair.









Third stop - New York City
Day 8 to 10 (06 - 09 Jun)

Mark picked us up in Toronto and drove us back to Buffalo again. He was so thoughtful. He knew we wouldn't have enough time for lunch and he actually packed lunch for us. And it came in real handy because our flight to NY was delayed by almost an hour.

Mark is really a great guy. Can't wait for him to visit Singapore so that we could return his hospitality. A friendly US security officer took this photo of us while in Buffalo airport. That's Mark wearing the tropical blue shirt my brother-in-law got for him. And that's my bro-in-law standing beside him.

It was own-time-own-target. We bought 1-Day Metro passes and went around NYC over the last 3 days of our holidays. Our first stop was the WTC 911 site. The entire area was fenced up and there wasn't really much to see. But I just wanted to be there.

We walked around Times Square, Wall Street, Theatre district, SOHO etc. Visited the American Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Terminal. Went to look at Brooklyn Bridge, took the ferry past Statute of Liberty. We even went for a nice leisurely boat ride at the Central Park. There was a lot of walking and the kids complained so much they almost drove me crazy.

On our last night in NYC, we watched the muscial broadway - Avenue Q. It was really enjoyable. The kids loved it. Though I had a bit of problem trying to explain some of the scenes (had full puppet-nudity!).

Visited Virgin Records which had a fantastic range of DVDs. I bought a few DVD TV box sets and had totally forgotten about the censorship thing we have back in Singapore until after I paid for them. Luckily I went through our customs without any problem.

I enjoyed the trip to US. We might go to the west coast next year. Perhaps San Francisco and stop by Hawaii.

Ha! Just got back from vacation and already I'm planning for the next holiday.

After listening to darth, arethusa, fizzy fish's radioshows, I became rather curious about this internet radio broadcast thing. Did some search last night and came upon this neat software called Nicecast.

It sounded easy enough so I downloaded the demo. Went through the basic steps and hey! within minutes I was broadcasting! Songs were playing from another home PC sharing the same LAN! Tried the VoiceOver effect and I could hear me voice too. It was totally cool!

I was more than happy to pay for it and received my registration code this morning.

This time I went through the manual in closer detail.

Step 1 : Test with QT player on powerbook - Working. Next!

Step 2 : Test with a separate PC running on the same LAN - Working. Next!

Step 3 : Test via internet - Nothing (I knew it couldn't be that simple).

Ran the Server Checker and received an error message. The manual said I had to do a port mapping/fowarding from my router (oh no! wtf was that?). I searched the website's forum pages and apparently I was supposed to configure my router so that it would allow traffic for port 8000. I found the Port Forwarding thingy in my router's settings but I didn't know how to configure it. It took me a couple of hours of trial & error and testing and finally I got a green light from the Server Checker. I immediately called a friend and had him test my internet IP.

YYEEESSSS!!

US$40 and a quick 3.3MB download to be on air. It can't get any easier than that! (well.. except for that port fowarding thing.. but it's due to my lack of router knowledge.)

It was a fun trip but still it's good to be home :) I have plenty of photos and video clips to sort out. Will post some of the nicer ones soon.

I haven't travelled for a long time and haven't been to US since Sep 11. I heard about the tight security checks at airports but I wasn't quite prepared for that level of "tightness".

Right at the start in Singapore's airport, there was a security counter for USA desinations whereby the officer would ask you all kinds of questions before you were allowed to approach the check-in counters. Questions such as purpose of trip, duration of trip etc, were pretty normal. But he started asking about our cameras and laptop, how long these items had been in our possessions and whether these had been sent for servicing recently.

We had to transit at Tokyo to Minnieapolis and then take a connecting flight from Miinieapolis to Orlando. And at all the boarding gates, we had to have our carry-on luggage checked by the X-ray machines. Shoes, wallets, belts, coats, jackets all had to be taken off and scanned too. It was a hassle especially when we had kids with us. If we had known, we would have kept our carry-ons to a minimal.

At Minnieapolis, we were asked to wait in an interview hall for our turn to have our travel document checked. The officer was really taking his time going through our passports and travel itinerary and we thought we would miss our connecting flight to Orlando. We only had 5 minutes after he was done and it was a mad dash to collect our luggage and then to the correct boarding gate. Luckily there was a delay in that flight and we made it.

Coming home was the same. Plenty of checks and X-ray scans. But the surprise came back at Singapore's airport. In the past, once we've gone past the immigration counter and collected our baggages, we would be able to leave the arrival hall. Now there was another scanning machine set up at the exit of the arrival halls and we had to have all our stuff scanned again! wtf? Didn't we go through scanning just before boarding the plane? I understand and respect the security requirements at the boardin gates. After all it's for our safety during the flights. But I really don't see the purpose of this additional scan after we landed. I can't magically conjure a bomb or gun during mid-flight, can I?