Family in Boston - Part IV Last week in Boston

We arrived back in Boston from Florida on Monday morning, in time to return to class that very afternoon. My parents, having grown bored of the cold and cosmopolitant Boston, decided to make a trip to nearby Waterbury where the Ben&Jerry factory is, while my sister decided to stay with us and *gasp!* attend class with us! (yep she thinks her IQ increased by 200 points because she listened in at one graduate class)

cw helping to prepare for dinner with just the three children at home - roast chicken rice!

We even sneaked to the playground downstairs when no kids are playing to regain our childhood!

Meanwhile, our parents were having fun at Ben&Jerry factory..

The heading says it all.

Souvenirs from B&J! dc has the same shirt as me, in mustard yellow. Together, we kind of make up the Hwa Chong colours.

Mum and sis making the apple crumble that sis made for her Home Economics exam. Though she messed up the one for the exam (interestingly the teacher couldnt tell because the burnt crust was hidden under the apples), this one turned out very well and yummy. Apple + lemon zest + butter = yum.

My parents bought a cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate dc's birthday early while they are still in Boston, together with a card that says, 'Happy Birthday Son-in-Law'.

dc to cw, after opening the card: 'Hey Chyan Wen, why didn't you sign the card?'

cw, slightly flustered: 'Because you are not my son-in-law lah!'

Mum and Dad bought us a food processor as housewarming present, so we made 五香 for dinner one night, and have lots to keep for our meals during finals.

Watch the pros do the wrapping. It was hard to get the correct beancurd skin, so this batch turned out a bit more crumbly than usual.

Dinner on the last night of my family's stay at Legal Seafood. More lobsters!

dc and I had to go to class on the morning of their departure, but my sister left this photo of her and all the babies (yep, we travel with ALL of them wherever we go. There're four pikachus, two puppies, two bears, two Coca Cola polar bears, and a tortoise that makes a bubbly noise. Did I mention they all have names?) in my camera. I almost cried when I saw this after I came back from class.

So that concludes the four part series on my happiest days in Boston. Uncoincidentally, this weekend is also the conclusion of our winter break - school starts next week, and dc and I are looking forward to another semester of hard mugging and labbing. We did many things over this winter break, but that deserves another post by itself. There'll be more pretty pictures when spring finally comes - the days are already starting to become longer!

Family in Boston - Part III DisneyWorld and Kennedy Space Center

What is Orlando without theme parks, right? The whole industry in the city is built around tourism, thanks to the many theme parks that called Orlando home - DisneyWorld, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and remotely, NASA's Kennedy Space Center. I find myself even more excited about Disney and NASA than my sister, which again supports my theory that I'm somewhat like Benjamin Button - growing mentally younger in a physically older body.



Important to start the day the right way! From the best waffle batter at the hotel.



The magic begins with a ferry ride to one of the four DisneyWorld themeparks. Disney has gotten so huge that you will need at least four days to properly cover all the themeparks, which unfortunately was not possible for us. I vow to return some day!



I love the comical effect of this photo taken in the ferry, plus Mum and Dad unintentionally well included within the frames.



Photo op at the Main Station behind us...




... and the iconic Sleeping Beauty's castle. Dont think anybody can get tired of visiting Disney over and over again, right?



My marmee and daddy.



Sometimes I wonder if I never grow up because I keep thinking that my sister is still a baby (well she still is kind of small, physically..) and I still need to play with her. Turns out that she might have outgrown my mental age.



Another photo taken with great comical effect because all three of us have different expressions.



Can't say you've been to Disney until you have tackled the smoked turkey leg that's as big as a clenched fist. Nothing spectacular, tastes like ham, but just fun to eat.



Alice in Wonderland topiary!



Outside the shops with pretty pretty lights at night.




Picture perfect Mum and Dad next to a pretty MickeyMouse fountain!



I thought this almost looks like a postcard with us being framed by the window display.

This is a commemorative photo because it is cw's first driving practice before her next after age 21! (It always breaks her heart when she remembers she can't take lessons at 18.)

The night ended with a parade..

.. and a spectacular fireworks display lasting 10 minutes. Can you imagine their revenue if they are able to do this every night? Maybe they can contribute to the bailout plan. (Photo credit goes entirely to cw. I was busy taking videos that are too big to load here.)

Main Street after the fireworks, when everybody's leaving. The magnitude of the crowd on a Thanksgiving weekend is terrifying.

No trip to DisneyWorld is complete without trying on their cute hairbands.

We made an hour's drive to Kennedy Space Center the day after DisneyWorld, after having a themepark break in between to visit the outlet malls.

We timed our trip to NASA to coincide with the return of the space shuttle Endeavor after a two week trip to the International Space Station. At the space center, the flag of the space shuttle in operation is flown below the American flag. Turns out that Orlando was expecting a storm that day, and the space shuttle was routed to California to land. What a letdown.

dc and I with the space shuttle launching pad far far far away behind us.

That's the Orbital Processing Facility (OPF) at the other far far far end of the complex away from the launch pad. The space shuttle travels from the OPF (the hanger for the shuttle) to the launch pad on a trawler at 1mile per hour or some ridiculously low speed like that.

Space shuttle engine and the Ke's!

My dad likes to capture us at play.

Every space mission gets their own insignia with the astronauts' names on it. Isn't it cool?

Kennedy Space Center at night.

We didn't get to do much at KSC, partly because we went there late and were unable to finish the whole tour, and the storm dampened our spirits significantly. Nonetheless, it was definitely very educational and 'nerdy' (in my sister's words) and worth a visit whenever you're in Houston or Orlando.

(P/S: If anybody knows how to load photos without throwing off the formatting, please teach me! This bug in Blogger is getting on my nerves, especially when I have so many stories to tell!)

Family in Boston - Part II Thanksgiving in Orlando

Thanksgiving falls on the last Thursday and Friday of November, but back in Hopkins we would typically get Wednesday off from professors on a goodwill basis. Being a freshman graduate student (an oxymoron, no?) and not yet inducted into the nerdy 'I want to keep learning' culture of MIT, I stupidly wrote an email to my teaching assistant asking if there'll be class as usual on Wednesday, only to be shot back an email that reminds me of 'institute policy' that Thanksgiving falls on Thursday and Friday.

So that Wednesday after class and a quick discussion on 'when we should ignore terms in an equation' (not all terms in an equation are created equally important) with our TA, dc and I rushed back home to pack and head to the airport on the T together with our family. Not surprisingly, the entire Boston was leaving for home and it was amazingly crowded on the airport-bound silver line bus.

Dinner at the airport. We never realized Johnny Rocket (or is it Billy Bomber? I forget) tastes so good! And check out my sister's weird-looking and interesting-tasting iced green tea latte at the end of the table.

I slept through the flight, despite the many interesting satellite TV channels on the plane. What can I say, it's a 10pm flight!

Us attempting to look cool in our Marriott Residence Inn (you guessed it!) suite. For two bedrooms, a huge living room and a fully-equipped kitchen, $158 isn't much to pay. Kudos to Residence Inn for affordable holidays!

First morning in the hotel. I love capturing people doing things (taking photos, for example), because I find candidness more interesting - in this case, for instance.

We went horseback-riding the first day. My horse is named Rosie, and she loves to stop to feed on the route, giving me a hard time pulling on her reins to coax her to continue. It was a trail in the woods, and at the end of the day, all of us found lots of black particles in our nasal mucus from the dust that was kicked up by the horses. Yuck.

Fat cat at the stable that was basking in the attention we were showering her.

Dinner at TGIFriday's. You may remember seeing this photo on the Dec 10 entry, and that's because this is one of the two (max three) photos of all five of us (sadly).

Outlet mall shopping on the Day 3 at Florida! (You will see Day 2 in the next entry.)

I love patchy cows and ice-cream.

Nike for babies! Kids nowadays are so fortunate.

My very own pair of new Nikes! Amazingly, by the end of the day, I would have bought a pair of snow boots and a pair of ladies boots, bringing my total shoe loot on that trip to three pairs.

Dinner at Red Lobster (considered fast food in Boston!!), compliments of American Express Rewards Program. We had trouble deciding who to drive after dinner, since the adults had a bottle of white wine and I had a delicious strawberry-mango cocktail slush. Thankfully we made it to the hotel safely (and without a ticket).

Family in Boston! - Part I

It was Jan 9 two days ago, marking one month since my family has left for Singapore after a three week visit and holiday to Boston. As I was telling my sister, the past month seemed like forever, whereas in a typical semester one month would have been gone in a snap of fingers (one month is the usual duration between exams). Those three weeks were like having MIT right in my hometown, where I can enjoy the company of my family after having classes in the day - those were my happiest days in MIT yet!

Care package from Singapore! Coffee powder, kuei lapis, Bengawan Solo cookies, white fungus, curry pastes, chicken rice mix.. Christmas came early!

Marmee brought her crepe recipes - we had yummy ham, mushroom and cheese crepes, and used the remaining batter to make Haagen Daz ice-cream crepes!

Many thanks to Zhen Xing who graciously left his queen-size air bed for us (thanks Vera for leaving it with ZX!) when he came in end Oct. We were able to squeeze two double beds in our bedroom for my folks and CW, while dc and I slept in the living room, close to our books..

My sister was extremely impressed by dc's ability to flip stuff that she took this video to study the art of flipping food.

Lunch at our favourite restaurant at Chinatown. Unfortunately their famous roast duck didn't live up to expectations that day.

CW aspiring to be an MIT beaver, who is "noted for his engineering and mechanical skill and habits of industry. His habits are nocturnal, he does his best work in the dark."

Photo-op for the children of the house!