Home. Where I Wanted To Go.

there's an inexplicable good feeling in homecoming. maybe its a return to all things familiar and all things missed. maybe its being able to see all your loved ones and friends again. it sure feels good to be back.

and so my great american trail concludes.

i returned on the flight to singapore from japan feeling extremely tired. so tired that it turned out to be a good thing. coming off an excruciating 13hr flight where i couldn't get a single wink's rest i ended up on the plane back to singapore with a double-seater(the capacity of flights heading to singapore always seems inproportional to calculated distance from the location of departure - the further from singapore you take the flight from the more empty its gonna be) by the window. so i curled up like a lost puppy and nested 6 of the flight's 7hrs. missed even my dinner and snack, and didn't catcha single movie(the previous flight i watched 5 movies in all).

my great american trail has been the summer of my life. recounting it would take a pretty long time i can imagine and trying to remember all that's happened in this period would be near impossible. but its a good thing i kept a running blog and a keenly-updated written journal(writing a book about my experiences did cross my mind). so the next step would be to quickly log my digital pictures with details before my infamous short-term memory kicks in.

the first chapter of the trail began with myself joining the camp chief ouray cast of 2004. never having been exposed to a children's wilderness camp before, alot of the camp's culture and experiences did open my eyes to excessive american culture. it was also fueled by the fact that i was the only international camp counsellor in the camp and therefore had a monopoly on all affairs outside the states(hardly anyone of the staff had gone out of the american continent before). on hindsight i think that was a really lucky break, and thereby enhanced my immersion into the american way of life. which is really interesting, even in the smallest things. so i had a lot of fun going through 2 weeks of staff training, 8 weeks of children's camp, 1 week of girl scouts camp and 1 week of active older adults camp. the friends and relations cultivated along the way has been priceless. and i believe alot of these relations will continue to pepper its prints along the path that is my life. best camp in the nation. best summer of my life.

the second chapter of the trail started the moment i was delayed for 19hrs on the amtrak from colorado to chicago. the whole tour that i had pre-planned for weeks prior to the trip turned out to be a tour of a lifetime with so many memorable experiences. in the belief that opportunity and chance are often mapped by you own creations, plans and attitude, there is little much i can ask for out of this holiday of a lifetime. for starters joe makes a fucking good travelling companion. pardon the language but it deserves such emphasis. i can hardly ask more from a travelling companion. funnily enough joe mentioned at the beginning of the trip that this trip together would either make us hate each other forever, or bond us closer as brudders. i knew it would turn out the latter. we had so much fun, with my boliaoness and and optimistic positivity and his brutal honesty and agreeable-to-any-interesting-idea all blended with our sheer enthusiastic sense of adventure, i think we made up a team capable of winning next season's amazing race.

nevertheless the places we chose to go and the mode of transport we chose to take(we should've coined a name for our car like betty or something) really aided our appetite for adventure and the unknown. in all we drove more that 3700miles of american and canadian road. hit a grand total of 3 cars. got pulled over by the police more than 5 times. and slept in the trusty cavalier more than 3/4 of our holiday. in a way that car was indeed our home, home of stinky shoes(mine), dirty clothes, maps and constant backaches. a host of fun nonetheless.

working at haagen dazs was another rewarding experience, learning shitloads and experiencing the american teenager's working life(we totally blended right in). pay was good and everybody liked us alot.

but i've gotta say the biggest highlights of the trip on a personal note would be seeing the niagara falls from both borders, and the climb up mt katahdin. the climb will probably rank as one of our greatest achievements i think. what's your highlights, joe?

so i'm done packing. packing is tiring. but i'm glad its done. wonder when i'll ever take all that crap out again. wonder when i'll get to use them again. from my 2-man tent to my crazy creek, from my thermarest to my sleeping bag, i wonder if i'll ever get a chance to use them so extensively again once more.

sigh.