The American dream (part I)

This post was supposed to be published back in June. Procrastination at its best ;)

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I don't know why I put the title as the American dream because to be honest, I have never previously dream to visit the US. All I have been (secretly) dreaming is to go back to the UK someday.

But life works in the most mysterious way. 

Eventhough I have been ignoring my boss' call for me to visit the US to learn about their Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD.) programme in the past few years, an opportunity came about early May this year when my boss, who were supposed to accompany some students on their international student programme to University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, cracked her foot while on a work trip to Egypt and asked me to replace her instead. I was reluctant at first, as I was drowning in heavy workload and that the trip was only 3 weeks away. Even more stressful was the fact that the students, whom I thought were all set for the trip, were still in the dark on their trip schedules, accommodation, flights etc. What pursuit next were frantic email exchanges with USC personnel, countless FB Messenger and Whatsapps exchanges with the main trip committee members to finalise the flight, accommodation, attachment schedules and tour packages. But we did it and we did it well (kudos to Ammal and Amir!) and I managed to get the visa pretty fast too.

I am glad I came aboard. It was fun to travel with a bunch of energetic & vibrant 20-somethings (made me feel young again!). I learned alot from Prof Wincor (our host in USC) and from the visits to the hospitals and retail pharmacies affiliated to USC.  When I was in the USC Keck Medical Centre, I secretly wished I was working at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital again. Isk.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights:

Day 1: We arrived at our rented apartment on North Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park with many luggage bags in tow. We were pleasantly surprised, it was nicer than in the website.

Love the kitchen. There was even a coffee maker for me :)

Day-2: We left the apartment very early and went to Universal Studio. It was abit cold that day (I was freezing to the bones) but it was a blast. I didn't take that many photos here though. Belum warm up.

Of course I had to take a snap here.

When we arrived, Mario Lopez (I still remember him from Save by the bell in the early-mid 90s) was shooting a morning show. I managed to insert my face at the back so for a few seconds at least, my face was live-telecast to the whole of the US. Heh.

With the Simpsons!

He's so cute

Moulin Rouge

Some of the rides

The house of  minions

This is the actual Westeria Lane of  Desperate Housewives

Ehem

Day-3: We took the train to Anaheim for the Disneyland Theme Park. This trip brought back some happy memories of course.

Love the new train station here. It's huge!

The Anaheim Ducks home ground (The Honda Center) was just across the street but we didn't have enough time to pay a visit.

Disney celebrating its 60th anniversary.

The space mountain ride - as awesome as I could remember!

The last time I saw Aladdin on parade was in 1997. Such a long time ago.

Selamba je kan lunch on the street of Disney :)

To be continued.