from carbondale, Il, USA with love

This time, the trip is a lot better.
The way i remember it, it used to take a lot longer to reach LA , even from Narita airport.
This time, from KLIA, we flew via Taipei, and it omly took about 4 hours from KL to taipei. The next 11 and half hour was a pleasant flight from Taipei to LAX. It's only 5 hours afterward that we flew to St Louis by American Airlines, and we paid another USD 1123 for 2 round trip tickets, because according to them, our tickets are no longer valid, when the initial date was changed from 21st March to 5th May.
We ahve expected penalties, but to pay a full ticket price for both of us, (however expected) was not very nice. Huuuhuu.. .
Anyway, we arrived safely in the US, Yang saw us at the airport, and we drove back to his grocery store in Carbondale,Illinois (where Soutrhern Illinois Uni is), since he had to be in charge the next day. His 2 workers are taking the day off today. It took 3 hours to drive from the Lambert International Airport to Carbondale.
Tonight, we will be heading to Champaign, Illinois, after Yang closes his store.

At the store now, there's a PC, and internet connection. It's just great.
People are coming in and out of the store, people of different nationalities, races, and they bought breads, beans, tofu, sugar canes ( batang tebu!), brooms( penyapu gandum), sambal ikan bilis- anchovies fried with chilies?), guava, mangoesteen juice, pickled garlic, etc.
It'll be great to see Yang Gemma and Monah.

Oh yes. The first thing that I noticed when I first saw Yang, was : How old he look. he has some streaks of white hair. And I cam't stop crying when Emak said that : Kita sama-sama dah tua!

oh, i have to go. People at the cashier counter have started looking at this lady in tudung-clad, who is so busy at the PC typing...

see ya all in a week.