Dallas is the city where john f. Kennedy was assassinated. In fact, the building from which the sniper, lee harvey oswald fired his shots is still around. It has since been converted into a museum dedicated to JFK. Knowing this, I simply had to pay it a visit. It is called the sixth floor museum, as it was from the sixth floor of this building where oswald shot the president in November 1963.

The building used to be the Texas school book depository where oswald worked. The information presented in the museum was extremely detailed. Photographs had been painstakingly collected from eye-witnesses and arranged to form a time-line of the shooting, down to the very minute!

That spot by the sixth floor window where oswald perched was fully visible behind glass. It was the spot where he lay waiting for the president’s motorcade to pass by. The area had been arranged exactly the way oswald left it, with cardboard boxes and all.

A few points to note:

• oswald killed another police officer within hours of shooting the president.
• the day after the assassination, oswald himself was shot and killed while in custody. The museum even had a video screening of that shooting!
• most Americans did/do not believe that oswald acted alone or that he in fact was the sniper. There are several conspiracy theories floating around.
• the rifle that oswald used to kill the president cost just $12.87.

Interestingly, a white “X” has been marked at the exact spot on the road where jfk was shot in his car. Many of the buildings that were around at that time are still standing today. Notice the building third from the left, coloured in red? That’s the “old red” courthouse I mentioned a few days earlier. It was built in the 1890s to replace the previous courthouse that had burned down. The courthouse before that also suffered the same fate, and so did the one before… In total, five ill-fated courthouses had been destroyed in fire before “old red” was built and became the only one that lasted.

I learned a lot from this museum trip. The atmosphere there was really solemn the entire time. At the end of it I even left a message on the visitors’ logbook.

Moving on, I happened to pass by an interesting store that calls itself “wild bill’s Western store”. Hah! A supplier for cowboy wear! Cool!

I was most amazed by the huge range of boots. I had never seen so many different kinds of boots in one place before! These were cowgirl boots, which explains why there are colours like pink.

There was another huge section dedicated to cowboy boots and I saw some guy trying on some. Could he be a real texan cowboy?

No time to ponder! I wanted to go to the Dallas museum of art and time was seriously running out! Museums tend to close early so I had to skip lunch just to make it.

One thing that both museums had in common was this audio device that you wear around your neck. Many exhibits had a number that you would use to press into the device. A voice would then start telling you more about that exhibit through your headphones. How neat! None of the museums I have visited in Singapore has the same thing.

It just so happens that there was a van gogh exhibition at that time. How lucky was i? Although strictly speaking, most of the exhibits were not of his works but rather of the artists that inspired him.

Van gogh’s famous “café terrace at night” (1888), drawn with reed pen and ink over pencil on laid paper. Noticed something? The museum allowed photography as long as the camera didn’t emit any flash or light. Awesome!

A couple of my favourite sculptures…
Left: “Adam from The Gates of Hell“, Auguste Rodin, 1880
Right: “L’Alsace“, Albert-Ernest Carrier Belleuse, before 1883

Left: “Bouquet of Flowers in a Terracotta Vase with Peaches and Grapes“, Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1776
Right: “Vase of White Lilacs and Roses“, Edouard Manet, 1883

A personal favourite… “Eiffel Tower“, Robert Delaunay, 1924. Very vivid and daring colours used at such a conservative age!

“Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm”, Claude-Joseph Vernet, 1775. This is my most favourite painting in the museum. It was huge, very detailed, and it took up most of the wall. I’m suddenly reminded of what Mr. Bean said in his movie. When asked to comment on a famous painting without knowing anything about it, he said, “well, firstly, it’s quite big, which is excellent. If it were very small, microscopic, then hardly anyone would be able to see it. Which would be a shame.” everyone lapped it up because they thought he was a real art expert!

Haha I’m a fan of Mr. Bean and each time I watched that movie, I thought he didn’t make any sense. Until now. Because of how large the painting was, I could see its fine details. There’s an impending storm and the villagers had to stop working. You could see fishermen packing their stuff and mothers rounding up their children to leave. I especially liked the village set in the distance. Here’s a close-up of the different parts of the painting.

The museum also had certain rooms to showcase antique furniture and works of art. I thought it adopted a rather interesting concept. This is a dining room.

And a bedroom, which I thought was royally gorgeous! Very befitting of a princess!

That was it. The museum had to close at that time. But it was a very enriching experience to see so many works of art over the ages. There were many ancient artifacts too from various civilisations spanning all parts of the world. Damn, I would so kill to go to the met in New York.

America is clearly a country that’s designed for driving. It looks as though everyone owns a car and those mammoth roads are eight lanes wide in each direction. People don’t really seem to take public transport. In fact, this trip made me realise that I really need to get off my lazy ass and start learning how to drive. If I ever want to get out of Singapore, that is.

No prizes for guessing what food we had for dinner. Yes, it was Mexican food again! This time we dropped by la palma veracruzana, a casual little place that prides itself as being an authentic seafood restaurant.

The place was by the river and it was extremely breezy and beach-like. It kind of reminded me of the o.c… I watch way too many TV shows, don’t i? We even spotted some geese or swans swimming at the river! The people working at the restaurant were all Mexicans who spoke little English, so I guess the food must be pretty authentic!

I must spend some time talking about the drinks we had. They were called micheladas, a popular Mexican alcoholic beverage that our hostess recommended. It was the most interesting drink I ever had! Spicy, sour, and alcoholic all at once! I tasted tomato sauce and some form of hot sauce within the concoction.

The thing is that it was so spicy I couldn’t stop drinking it, if you get what I mean. But the more I drank the more it burned my tongue. It was strangely addictive though and I even got a second helping of it! If anyone knows where I can find this in Singapore, let me know!

Our soup appetiser was pretty awesome. The prawn that came along was huge! But best of all the soup itself was bursting with flavour and had the rich taste of crab. Damn!

Remember how I said Mexican food has a whole array of colours? Check these out!

How colourful! Such bright and vivid colours on our plates!

Look at those fat prawns! The portion was just so huge! I got full from eating the prawns alone. I had some mixed feelings about the dark purple lumpy paste so I left that one untouched. But overall it was a really sumptuous meal.

After a few consecutive days of working and jet lag, we decided to call it a night. Just one more day in Dallas, and I was to leave America. I wonder when I would ever return!

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My corn-based quesadilla (tortilla with cheese) was covered with melted monterey jack cheese. Loved it!

Over here, our friendly waiter can be seen preparing our food right in front of us. I love it when they do that. To me it’s an inkling of good food and good service.

One thing about restaurants in America is that the waiters regularly come by to ask if we’re doing fine. We rarely get such attention in Singapore. Even if they do ask about us, it’s during the time when they’re clearing our plates. Restaurants here focus more on getting high turnover rates rather than giving good customer service.

Mexican dishes are a multitude of colours, aren’t they? And the food is good. Seems like you can’t go wrong with Mexican!

For my main course I ordered ernesto’s special. I didn’t ask who ernesto was but if it was his special then it’s probably good. The dish was basically chicken breast topped with sour cream sauce and completely covered with a generous amount of melted cheese. I love melted cheese!!! It was served with pico de gallo (chopped tomato, onion, etc), guacamole (some form of vegetable paste) and rice. Don’t even ask me how to pronounce those!

This time round, the refried beans tasted slightly different from those at el fenix (from two days before). It was all good though.

For dessert, our waiter recommended their panna cotta, made from scratch by the house. It was slightly too sweet for my liking though.

The elements that went into making this a wonderful meal wasn’t simply the awesome food or the great service. It was our seats. We snagged an outdoor table that was breezy and gave us a decent view of the streets. Loved it!

After dinner, we went to the mall again! The guys caught a movie but I decided to shop instead. It was to be my last go at the malls and I wasn’t about to waste it on a movie.

Again, it was another thrilling experience seeing all the familiar names like delia’s, banana republic, Juicy Couture and urban outfitters in front of me. I had been a fervent fan of these online malls so it was great being finally able to physically shop in them in real life!

Urban outfitters employed a rather interesting decor, with chairs hanging high from walls. Very innovative!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about this. I went into Starbucks to get a large cup of hot mocha to go. It was getting late and the weather was getting cold. For some reason the kind folks there decided to just give it to me and said it was on the house! Whoa!

So at the end of the three shopping trips, here are some of the shopping bags. Awesome! I haven’t even unpacked most of them because I’ve been so busy. But I’m keeping those bags as souvenirs!

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The building itself looked rather plain and nondescript, a little run-down even. But the interior really rocked! Very retro and very hip. Once again, I wonder why I failed to take any pictures when I had the chance.

The bartender was a really friendly chap and a skilled salesman too. We settled down for a couple of drinks and had barely warmed our seats when he managed to convince us to buy a couple of glasses as well.

See, the drink itself cost US$7-ish but if we paid US$11 we got to keep the glass too. It would make a nice keepsake from Dallas, wouldn’t it? It is now standing tall and proud in my display cabinet.

I loved the stirrer that came along with the drink, in the shape of a nice electric guitar. How adorable! I got a t-shirt and a pin too, also in the shape of a guitar. Okay, I think that’s enough memorabilia from Hard Rock Café Dallas!

Walking along the pedestrian walk, I glanced down on the ground and noticed something that looked oh-so-familiar and captivated me for a moment. Maple leaves!

That’s when I realised we were surrounded by maple trees. At least, that’s what I thought they were. If you’re wondering why I was so excited about those trees, scroll to the top of this page. Notice those flying leaves? I had never seen them in real life!

We made a stop at a wine store. They had many adorable miniature bottles of liquor and I grabbed a ton of them as though they were free. I bought so many, I wonder why they weren’t confiscated at the airport!

My favourite is definitely tequila rose. The bottle is so pretty, with the rose and all! It reminds me of anna sui.

Lunch was at a place called la gourmet pizza. The back of the restaurant opened out to this:

How quaint! I loved it! Why don’t we have such places in Singapore? The pizzas we had were freaking awesome. The barbeque sauce they used in our barbecued chicken pizza was so, so yummy!

The American pizza was a real colourful piece. Delicious? You bet! I reiterate my point that there’s just no food in the states that doesn’t taste good! Damn, I’m feeling hungry already!

Our next stop was northpark centre. But we had to seek directions from a pretty little flower shop. It was a really beautiful country-style store!

Look! How lovely! Having just celebrated Halloween, there were still pumpkins placed by the front door. Notice the mailbox to the left. Doesn’t it remind you of the recent movie, the lake house? It had the little signal flag by the side that could be raised to indicate new mail.

We spent some time in the store oohing and ahhing over their pretty merchandise. It wasn’t just flowers, but all sorts of pretty stuff like exquisite lamps and dollhouses. The store’s pet cat came strolling in at one point. It was a very sweet-natured cat that was a lot bigger than the average-sized Singapore cat. Everything in America looked bigger in size!

We made our final stop of the day at northpark centre, the largest shopping mall in Dallas. That means it was even more of a shopping haven than the galleria (from the day before). For starters, they had the same stores like macy’s.

Abercrombie & Fitch, Part 2!

And… Are you ready for this?

Alessandra ambrosio! Ahhhhh! *screams* you know what that means right?

Victoria’s secret!!! I got so high and I didn’t even drink! Alessandra ambrosio is so hot! *erupts into screams again* okay I shall not discuss the things I bought. But it was a fruitful trip. Very fruitful indeed. I even got a couple of gift cards to keep as mementos.

Some snacks from mrs fields for the a TV night back at the hotel. With a name like peanut butter dream bar, how can any peanut butter lover resist?

I love the states!

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It was a really cloudy day, so cloudy we couldn’t even see the top of the tall buildings! It was as though they were reaching into heaven! What a magical sight! I thought it would be a daily occurrence and neglected to take any pictures. Damn!

There certainly were many interesting architecture in the downtown area. My favourite is this castle-like building with all the turrets.

It’s no castle of course, I can only dream. It is too small to be a castle anyway and is in fact a courthouse, affectionately called “old red”. But more on that later. We finished doing our work and it’s time for lunch. Dallas is somewhere near Mexico, which probably explains the abundance of Mexican restaurants in the area.

But the flight halfway across the globe sure wasn’t an easy one. We had to take a seven-hour flight to Tokyo before making a thirteen-hour connecting flight from there. That was a killer! Unless you could afford business class seats of course.

Compared to American airlines, the Japan airlines flight was a joyride. The service was great, the movies were interesting, and the food was simply awesome!

Lunch was seafood ragout with steamed rice, which was delicious. Best of all, it came with some sort of a metal heater to ensure that the food remained warm throughout. Whoa! That’s real thoughtful of them!

Even the sugar and creamer that came with the coffee were packaged together very nicely. That’s Japan airlines for ya. The Japanese certainly pay a lot of attention to detail!

I slept for most of the flight until we were reaching Tokyo. That’s when we saw the tip of Mount Fuji peeking through the cloak of clouds! Guess what? From now on I can actually tell people that I’ve seen Mount Fuji! What a bonus!

At the Tokyo narita international airport, we had to wait a couple of hours to make our connecting flight. There was some time to check out the airport and we spotted a number of interesting vending machines.

Häagen-dazs ice cream, anyone? And travellers’ insurance from a machine! That’s something new! Since we were in Japan, we definitely had to get a taste of some authentic Japanese food even for the very brief period that we were there.

My tempura shrimp udon came in a huge bowl with a really generous serving. The udon was the silkiest and smoothest I ever had — it simply slid down the throat! As I slurped it down greedily, I made a mental note that I’m not going to eat any udon in Singapore anymore.

Here’s another sign that the Japanese love their things pretty. Even the paper napkins had been cut in a nice zig-zag pattern!

Finally, it’s time for the most dreadful flight of a lifetime. Don’t get me wrong. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to go to America. But the truth can’t be denied — American airlines is horrible! The thirteen-hour flight was a really uncomfortable one with the cramped seats, arranged 2-5-2 so they looked like this:

…
Xx xxxxx xx
Xx xxxxx xx
Xx xxxox xx
Xx xxxxx xx
Xx xxxxx xx
…

With me in the “o”. There’s barely any leg space and it makes me wonder how an average American can fit in there when Asians already have much difficulty. The poor in-flight service didn’t make the flight any more pleasant. Flight attendants were aged 40 and above and looked as though they would rather be some place else. Food and beverages were served grudgingly, and I didn’t notice a single smile throughout the entire thirteen-hour flight.

Thankfully the food was decent. I barely slept though, and got really restless at one point. Then I realised I was missing a bear companion. When travelling abroad I always carried a good luck charm in the form of a bear. So I flipped through the in-flight catalogue and got myself a cuddly buckaroo teddy bear! Yay!

Eventually, we reached Dallas, got the rental car and made our way to the hotel. I thought the flight would never end! It felt like an eternity! Argh!!!

The first thing I noticed about Dallas was of course the cold weather. And the roads, they were wide. It seemed as though everyone owned a car because I rarely saw any cabs or buses on the roads. At one point we even spotted a couple of people in their car wearing cowboy hats! This was Texas after all!

Neon signs and advertisement boards lined either side of the roads, and there were the familiar McDonald’s restaurants and target department stores that I only heard of in TV shows.

We had barbeque at a restaurant called pappas bar-b-q, since 1967! I absolutely loved the bright neon sign and the huge white signboard that had the daily specials. Do they have someone climbing up ladders to change the words everyday?

Loved the huge cow too! Do you see it?

The restaurant was very spacious and the style seemed very classic-texan. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if I spotted any cowboys having their dinner there!

The set meal I ordered consisted of barbecued chicken with potato on the side. I thought it would be whipped potato that comes in one of those little cups, but the potato serving was gargantuan! See how it compares with my phone? It could BE a whole meal on its own! And it was delicious! The guy recommended having cheese on top and it was real good. The Americans really know how to enjoy their food! We took a quick glance around the place and noticed we were the skinniest people around.