Took the flight early yesterday from Los Angeles to Chicago. I am here! Finally, a place I could travel through buses and an efficient light rail system! Chicago… also known as:

1. Gotham City. And having just seen The Dark Knight, I am quite psyched for exploration!
2. Home to Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Incidentally, I just received from my aunt (whose place I am staying in) my highly anticipated hardbound copy of the book.
3. 
   (Some might remember this as music from Little Miss Sunshine)

Where I stayed in California and Nevada, it was spacious, clean and serene. In this neighborhood, streets are smaller, some houses are quite old, and graffiti is everywhere - sordid little hints of the presence of gangs in the near vicinities. This is a place with something to tell. What’s not to love?

And by the way, that rhetorical question is written with some trepidation :D

This is a hilarious take on what apparently is a rivalry between two nations that inevitably get compared with each other due to similarities in more ways than one.

I dedicate this to my friends over in Singapore, heheh. Ok lah!

I love that the Playstation 3 could stream audio and video off my laptop… and wirelessly. This through the fabulous technology called DLNA.

Currently streaming Death Cab for Cutie’s “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” (from the album Plans):

“You may tire of me as our December sun is setting
because I’m not who I used to be.”

I have been to The Grand Canyon for the first time, and it is an overwhelming piece of wonder.

It is the single most awesome thing I have ever seen: the massive gulf of rocks and space and age, formed in the manner of great art. Which reminds me so much of… well, infinity. It’s an exaggeration of my imagination, of course, but I can’t help that it evokes imageries from Carl Sagan’s Contact to the strange ubership Rama.

My friend Mavic was kind enough to let me stay the few days at her flat in Phoenix as well as experience the Grand Canyon Bliss of 2008. And unexpectedly, a bit something more…

I was designated driver on the trip back from The Grand Canyon to Phoenix (a 3-hour drive, and my first ever drive in the US). At some point we suffered a very long stretch of a badly-paved highway, and then torrents upon torrents of heavy rain. But after escaping that part - it was a little before sunset - the sky brightened up, and somehow the rain that passed caused some kind of effect on the way the sun’s rays “spilled” out of the dark clouds and onto the earth below.

At this same moment we were along the part of the I-70 interstate where around are vast plains and valleys and rock formations, accentuated by looming mountain ranges from afar - very picturesque. The windows were down as Mavic tried to take as many versions of the sky as possible; the wind was blowing into the car. The local FM station started playing Sister Golden Hair (America). And I was driving.

For some reason the combination of all these things activated some synapses in my brain. SUDDENLY, I SAW THE PERFECTNESS OF EVERYTHING.

In that moment’s experience was a strange kind of happiness and contentment… It is somehow akin to those rare times I get these so-called epiphanies, except without the epiphanies. And ten times more powerful.

I guess the best way to describe it is that I had a euphoric moment. And I think it will count as one of the most memorable moments of my life. And to think it was unfounded! Emotions triggered merely by random events occuring at the same time! A bunny pulled off a magic hat! That is a bit unsettling…

The only visible sign of this euphoria was a grin, unusually wide, but otherwise normal-looking, so my companion probably never noticed anything out of the ordinary. I did not impart this story to her personally (although she will see this post sooner or later), for the sole reason that she would probably think of me as this crazy nut job who overly romanticizes every little new thing he sees.

Which of course, is quite the truth :P

I am now in California! I love my sister’s place; the hugeness of the apartment is a welcome break from the space-deprived flats of Hong Kong. But I still do not like the long distances and the necessity to drive to be able to go somewhere.

This post is not so much about where I am as it is about how I felt great anticipation and strong emotions toward this poster:

God bless the new Batman.