Old email

When I was doing some data-cleaning chores on my computer, I came across this entry which I wrote eons ago. It was an email I wrote to my family and Malaysian friends when I first came to US:


Hi everybody, I am in the states already. Till now, everything goes on quite well and I am now in my own dorm room.

Ok, I’ll report a bit about what I have gone through since I part from you guys in the KLIA. After bidding goodbye to the close ones, we, about 22 friends along with me(among which 20 are going to umich) board the plane MH94. It’s a huge jet, with 3-4-3 seats arrangement, and the seats are quite cramped together(worse than the super VIP bus seats). There was no place to stretch out our legs properly. Luckily, there is a screen behind each seat, and we can play games, watch movie or listen to movie to kill time. My seat was on the furthermost right(right next to the window) and a few rows from the back. There were two girls sitting on my left, and it’s quite inconvenient for me to go in and out to the lavatories during the flight. After waiting for quite a while, the plane finally took off. It’s an exhilarating experience. During the whole flight, we experienced quite a few air turbulence. Unfortunate for me, the screen of mine was jammed throughout the whole 4 hours from KL to Taipei(reached there at 7-8pm, can’t really remember). Boring indeed, nothing to do except to enjoy the light meal the plane crew served…(taste ok..)

After arriving Taipei, we went toilets, and immediately rushed to another gate to board the same plane. The flight to LA took an astonishing 11 hours+, which I was thankful that my screen could be used again. We had dinner and brunch on the plane, and we reached LA at about 7pm local time. We had to go through strict custom procedure, which we felt like being ‘detained’ for a couple of hours. I was the first in my group to be interviewed, and luckily my interviewer was a Chinese. He spoke mandarin to me, and was quite friendly (fyi, American English is real hard to comprehend…they have the slang). After being fingerprinted and taken photos, I was freed. After checking in my luggage to the connecting flight, we went to stay in a hotel in LA(motel 6, a chain). Four of us shared a 57 USD room.

The next day, we took the American Airlines to Chicago, then another connecting flight to Detriot. The service is far worse than MAS airplane, as no proper meals were served. We only received a bag with energy bar, yogurt and raisins inside. We finally reached Detroit at 5-6pm. We met seniors and M’sia Student Department’s officer at the airport. After taking out all our luggage, we took cabs to Ann Arbor. It cost 40 USD for 4 people.
The whole Ann Arbor is a university. There are no walls or fences to mark the area of the uni. It is simply huge, and I did not even know I was in the vicinity of the umich because it resembled a town so much.

For the first night in Umich, we stayed in a house called Betsy Barbour. It cost around 23 USD per person, and we were paired up to stay in double rooms. The seniors, who we found very helpful, suggested that we move to our own housing the next morning, and they arranged everything for us. That night, we dined at a Chinese restaurant. I ordered steam chicken rice(5usd). Because of the last meal I had was the lousy snack on the plane, Pretzels(served at noon), I was starving badly. Even so, I didn’t manage to finish the chicken rice, because the serving was so huge. The rice looked like a mountain, and the chicken they gave was like about half-a-bird.

The next morning, on the 25th Aug(US time), the seniors helped us to rent a truck to load our belongings and carry them to our housing neighborhood, which is located in the north campus(Betsy Barbour is in the central campus). Before that, I and two friend of mine had breakfast in Starbucks. (3USD for muffin and coffee) We managed to move in our rooms under seniors’ help.(we were not supposed to move in so early). My house is situated in the furthermost part of the Baits houses, (they have Baits 1 and Baits 2, with a total of 10 buildings), and it’s called the Smith house. My room number is 3005, but it’s not actually on the third floor, because the first and second floor is under the ground level. My room doesn’t have a toilet, and I must go out to the common washroom situated outside my room.(not so far though, there are only 4 rooms sharing a short corridor, 2 double, 2 single, means 6 ppl sharing a bathroom) The surrounding is excellent, there are trees and grasses all around, and it is very similar to the highland resorts in Malaysia, but I think it’s too quiet. Maybe this was because that the international and American students have not yet moved in. The room door also uses the card system, which is like the hotel card in Malaysia. We need to swipe the card, press your password before you can enter your room. Very advance indeed. After moving in our luggage, we had lunch ordered by seniors. (Pizza, 2USD) We went to TCF bank to open an account later. We had dinner in seniors’ room. They prepared us Malay style chicken rice. It tasted very delicious. Our seniors seemed to have everything in their room. They had microwave, rice cooker, cordless phone, tv, PS2, radio, dvd player, computer, car and you name it.

On the 26th Aug, we went out to the central campus by bus to open another bank account.
We had brunch in Wendy’s, a fastfood chain. Here, the price of fastfood is much more cheaper than asian food. It cost me about 3 USD only. I bought a LAN cable in the Michigan Union, and it cost me 15 USD! In the afternoon, we went to the Meijers, a hypermarket like Tesco to buy bed linens and stuff like bowl, forks, and pillow. I spend about 35 USD there. Later, we came back and had dinner in a Chinese restaurant at the north campus.

Overall, I had a good time here. Hope this will last for four years, and I won’t have the time to write journal like this every week. I will try to report my important events though, and occasionally send some pics. Today(27th Aug), I just had my international orientation in central campus. I met a lot of people from around the globe(a lot of Singaporeans here, they said there are about 60 of them coming in as freshmen this year.) and it’s wonderful. I think I will just stop here. Keep in contact!!


Interesting huh?? Good to keep journals indeed :)