USA (21/6 - 7/7/99) (North Carolina)

Well, going to USA FREE was by accident....a stroke of luck and many many hours of intensed sweating ;p..please hear me by...

One sunny day, i received a phone call from my ex lecturer, Dr-Teo-Koh, vice-dean of the School of Physical Education... She wanted to meet up with me to discuss something.... oh well, i had to go and see her...;p

Anyway, to cut 6 months of story short, Dr Teo wanted to know how 'good' my table tennis was..haha... should be how bad..anyway, there was an opening for the position of a table tennis coach and she would like me to help her to 'coach' 2 students who were going to take part in the World Summer Special Olympics Games'99 in Nort Carolina, USA. WOW! Does that means i get to go with them to USA? Grab!

Well, as people says, the REST is history. ON Weekdays (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and Weekend (Sats)... time was spent burning fats at the SPE (School of Physical EDucation)'s table tennis centre...My two students were Choo Fook Hin (19) and Kevin Lim (24), both Intellectually Disabled from MINDS. Kevin was a veteran in terms of playing table tennis whilst Fook Hin was the more energetic one.. both are in stark contrast to each other and enjoyed rubbing each other off occasionally...

The two boys didn't do too badly in the SO. Both are seed nos 5 n 6 by 'world' standard in division 7/8 ;-)...

Okie... back to the USA TRIP.... ;p

Jan - June : Preparing for the trip.... did a scrap book for the host family.. Here i must explain a bit... The little county called Gaiinsville in North Carolina has agrred to adopt the Singapore Team... hence, three of us will be put in one host's family. So, to show our appreciation, we decided to do a little scrap book / buy some local souvenirs for these kind folks.

Flight journey : Flying via Northwest Airlines : Singapore to Tokyo (7 hrs) , Tokyo to Minneapolis ( 14 hrs), Minneapolis to Raleigh (2 hrs)...phew~ sit until got flat butts liow lol

Okie.. the first five days were spent in a dazed.. living the American dream.... so to speak lol.... We eat Mcdonalds breakfast, lunches are hot dogs, chips, soft drinks, fruits and pies.. Dinners are more hotdogs,pies,turkey sandwiches,more chips and more soft drinks. We went to watch Mudcats (baseball, junior league), we went picnics, we went shopping or we stayed at 'home' and watched world cup (women)...

The next week was spent at the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill), staying at the highly secured (guarded by Army with rifles) hostels.... We spent days and night at the competition venue proper, either having competitions or having divisioning..It was fun to meet so many people from different countires..like a mini UN (minus the squabbles...)(140 countries and 7000 althetes)...

We had our fair share of glamour.... going 'live' before the national TV for the opening and closing ceremonies with celebs like Arnold S., Jon Bon Jovi,Eurnice Kennedy,Stevie Wonder, Billy Crystal etc....

USA (April - May'2000) : Minnesota (Minneapolis,St Paul); Ohio (Chicago),Michigan(Detroit), Indiana (Hammond) etc

Okie.. second trip to the states wasn't that bad! This time, it was pure pleasure and no work ;p Ivy my friend (see story under christianity) and kok chuen took off for Minnesota in late April'00. The snow has just melted but the air was crisp and windy ; It was very nice, a fine change from rainy Singapore ;-).

Minneapolis : we stayed at a hostel called City of Lakes International Hostel. It was a little nice and cosy house which has been converted to a hostel by the ingenious boss, pete ;-). People of all work of life and countries formed the backbone of the hostel. ;-) It was nice and very comfy and our room overlooked the Minneapolis' Institute of Arts and also a nice park with a nice sun rise view~