At Chicago eating Giordanno's Dipdish Pizza..
At Itasca State park - finding the source and doing cross-country skiing
At St Paul - en route to Winter Carnival
At Maisy's house for Photo-sharing and Shisha..
Roadtrip to Duluth - We spent Easter at Maisy's cabin with Mr. Snowman
@ NY - Statue of Liberty at the back.. Liberty Island
On the ship at Boston while trekking along Freedom trail..
In Super 8 Motel at Washington DC with travel buddies..
All the beautiful memories.. Will they be forgotten in the very long future? All the details and small lil' things that we had done and times that we had spent together. Or will we keep in contact for a very long time to come? Uncertainties.. uncertainties.. uncertainties.. I hope for it to be the latter. I do not want regrets like the last exchange at Taiwan where I failed to maintain contact with my host.. and till now I duno how things are like over there for her.. I do miss her sometimes and I hope to regain the contact with her again.. Shall return to Singapore and try harder this time round.. nodnod. IT's time.. I'm supposed to return to Taiwan this year for the promise that we had made 5 years ago...
A group of friends met at Taiwan for a Taiwan-Singapore Immersion Programme. It ended with this group of students having a pact - that they will return to the high school to look for the tree. The tree where underneath, stood that bottle.. the bottle which contains notes that they had written at that time for their friends. Those were the secret messages. They made a pact to reveal those notes 5 years later at the same place, under the same tree. Will this ever come true? It has been 5 years.. And now, instead of being in Taiwan, I'm in USA. Perhaps making other pacts that I will meet up with other friends some years down the road.. will they ever be realised? I wonder.. A natural pessimist I am.. But I am aware friendships as such takes effort.. I'd missed one.. I shall try to avoid it from happening the 2nd time.. But as usual, it's always easier said than done..
I hope that through it all, at the very least, I will be able to remember the wonderful memories I had here.. in Minnesota, with my group of European friends - Thomas, Stephanie, Richard, my Ultra favorite Hong Kong friends who taught me Cantonese and who traveled with us to many beautiful cities - Tracy and Xavier, my China friends - Leiwei, Norman, Sha Wei yuan and Xiao xi, my Superb Mentor who brought us to Duluth and showed us what a wonderful Easter is like - Marasie (Maisy), our 'hosts' who had returned from Singapore SMU's exchange programme- Andrew and Ngoc, and all other Singaporeans whom I'd met on this exchange making this a memorable experience - our 'big brother and sister' - Sandy and Kim Huat, our Singaporean friends here @ Minnesota - Christian, Rachel and Thomas, my SMU exchange buddies - York, Gina and my roomie - Meibin. Lastly to those who made all these possible, Joe Mosher from the international office in UMN and Ying and Sudha back in SMU. I know this seems like a very long list of "Thank You" Speech, but it's more for me to remember.. to remember that I once had such an enlivening experience here in Minnesota, in the USA for a 5 mth period.
Like all others, I will miss the time we spent here.. I'll miss and I'll reminisce. Hopefully years later, history shall not repeat itself and we will still be in contact, visiting each other once in a while.. May all come true.. *fingers crossed*
