Conference in Pittsburgh - Day 6 (28th November 2013)

Didn't even sleep as my shuttle was supposed to pick me up at around 3am in the morning. After quite a bit of effort, I managed to pack all my stuff into my luggage and bring them down to the hotel lobby. Chatted a while with the receptionist while waiting for the shuttle, and I gave her a packet of Jagabee Potato Fries that I had brought to USA. 

I reached the airport at about 4:30am and it took about 40 minutes to clear customs and security. After waiting at the departure gate for a while, it was time to board the plane. The plane was a really tiny one that sat 1x2. I was having a window and aisle seat at the same time! While beside the huge jumbo-jets, my window was looking directly at their landing gears! 

The plane had to de-ice for about half hour before taking off, and it took around 2 hours to reach JFK airport from Pittsburgh airport. JFK airport was really rundown and messy. Luckily the international side was slightly better than the domestic side. However, there was still not much food and shopping options available. My flight was delayed by an hour, possibly due to the inclement weather, and I parked myself at a nearby buffalo wings restaurant where I had a mix of super hot and super sweet wings, together with a fountain drink. 

The flight was pretty uneventful, with me sitting in the first row since I was on economy-comfort. After about 11 hours in the air, I finally landed in Narita airport and had to quickly clear the security, which was a total nightmare since the entire 747 flight of passengers had to clear it. I barely made it to my flight to Singapore and quickly boarded after grabbing a couple of snacks from the souvenir shop hastily. Another six hours later, I was back in Singapore.

Conference in Pittsburgh - Day 5 (27th November 2013)

This shall be a short post since I plan to let the pictures do the talking!

Today is the last day that I will be in pittsburgh, and so I decided to hike around the area surrounding the downtown. Initially I had planned to visit the Quaker Steak & Lube restaurant in Pittsburgh Heinz Field but I realised that it is located inside the stadium and only open to the people who have bought tickets to the matches held there (And I found that out after I reached the stadium. -.-). And so I went to the Carnegie Science Center and even watched an Omni-max Movie (The Rocky Mountain Express) which talks about how the railway across the Canadian Rocky Mountains was built. The science center was pretty sparse so the entire walk through all the exhibits took only an hour.

After the science center, I took a walk along the river and even entered Rivers Casino to take a look, since it's my first time entering a casino (I've never been to the Genting casinos either!). I then crossed West End Bridge (and braved the freezing cold and strong winds blowing sideways across the bridge) and walked over to Duquesne Incline Station where I took the Incline Tram up to Mount Washington area. It was a freezing cold but beautiful walk along the private estate as I got to see firsthand how the residents decorated their lawns in preparation for christmas, with snow covering the walkway and their roofs. I then had a late lunch at a quaint old chinese restaurant called Golden Palace Chinese Restaurant. It was quite nice speaking mandarin to the manager of the restaurant, which is a Taiwanese that migrated over years ago to Pittsburgh. There was so much to learn about the city and it was really interesting to find out how it is like to migrate to a completely different country.

After a long lunch, I took the Incline Tram at Monongahela Incline Station. It brought me downhill and over to West Carson Street where I took a short walk across Smithfield Street Bridge to reach downtown Pittsburgh. Once back in downtown, I headed to Macy's where I bought a bag for my mum and also headed to CVS Pharmacy and Rite Aid to buy some chocolates for my girlfriend. Since it was very late (8pm) by then and most of the restaurants were closed, I decided to buy MacDonalds for dinner and try their chicken sandwich set meal and their 20pc nuggets. It was pretty interesting but nevertheless, how good can MacDonalds get? Soon, I was back in my hotel room and packing my luggage.