Pittsburgh

It is a great honor to be invited as a guest writer on Dannie and Yi Lin's fabulously ambitious year long trip around the Americas. I would like to thank my mum and sister who were supposed to come and visit me for my graduation but canceled their trip and God for the swine flu that served as the reason they canceled. For if they were here Dannie and Yi Lin's plans might be very different.

For those that don't know, I am Dannie's infamous cousin that was exiled in Pittsburgh for the past 2 years working on his Master's in Entertainment Technology. I have been starved of family and Singapore related news and Dannie was nice enough to put Pittsburgh on his list of places to visit to check if I am still alive.

Reading the blog I realised Dannie and Yi Lin has their own colored fonts but they never told me what color font I was supposed to use. So I took 3 days to figure out what color fonts I would use and realised that Dannie and Yi Lin had already zealously covered their experience in Pittsburgh. So I will try and cover what they missed out.

At the airport, I was waiting at the luggage pickup area and was waving at them for the longest time but they were so zombified by their flight that they only noticed me after staring at the screen for awhile to figure out where their luggage were.

We picked up their big red rental car and drove back to my place. They were obviously skeptical when faced with the what looked like a run-down building from the outside. But were pleasantly surprised when they got in. The saying goes "Don't judge an apartment by it's old fashioned elevator"!

I had planned an itinerary of things to do when my mum and sister visited but for Dannie we removed all the cultural museum stuff and went straight to the food. After dinner at my group of friends favorite eating place, Oriental Kitchen (We ate at OK everyday during the week of Christmas), we went on a quick tour around campus and high-tailed it back to the apartment via shuttle so that Dannie and Yi Lin could use the internet to catch up on family and friends and catch some shut eye on the couch and sleeping bag. I felt some nostalgia when they found the 19 degree celcius Pittsburgh weather cold and used the portable heater I bought for the winter. I wonder if I would be used to the hot weather when I go back home.

We woke up for breakfast at 1230pm the next day! I brought them to Walnut street and totally confused them by giving their sleep addled brains 3 options of places to eat at. We finally decided on Pamela's (Poke Dannie to release the captive pictures on his camera) after which Dannie and Yi Lin decided to frolick around Pittsburgh on their own while I waited for my new roommate Laila the cat.


We made use of Dannie's rental car to get to Petco on waterfront to buy Laila's food and the all important poo poo palace. We had dinner at Red Robins and desert at Rock Bottom (Read Yi Lin's comprehensive post for the details). That marked the end of the Pittsburgh Food Festival. I hope I had made up all the nutrients that Dannie and Yi Lin lost gorging on TV dinners and fast food.

The next day we traded some of the Indomie I bought for my mum for toilet paper that they were lugging around since buying them for their RV before they whizzed off on their next adventure.

I find Dannie and Yi Lin's super budgeted year long trip both an inspiration and one of the world's wonders when they make it all the way around. I wish them a great time collecting stories!