Voting in the USA

While we’re all cooling down from US election fever from afar, here’s a story from someone who actually voted.

Choy Leow is an architect who was born in Jinjang and now lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota. He talks about what it meant to him to vote in this week’s election.

http://outstation.my/blog/2012/11/voting-in-the-us-elections-by-choy-leow/

Summer in Minnesota

So we just got back from visiting family in the U.S.

We were gone a little over two weeks, short if you consider it’s a 24 hour journey each way.

But it was nice to be back. Back there, I mean. As opposed to back here. It’s been a year-and-half since we moved to KL and sometimes, in the haze of jetlag, I forget where we live for a moment.

My ma-in-law took the family to northern Minnesota, to a resort we’ve gone to four summers in a row. It’s rustic, with kitchenettes where each family takes turns to cook dinner for everyone. The kids and their cousins roam all day in a pack, climbing rocks, swimming and checking out the wildlife.

The cabins are on the edge of a lake (Minnesota isn’t known as the land of 10,000 lakes for nothing), on the edge of the vast national park that is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. As someone who grew up with rainforests and tropical beaches, it took me a while to appreciate the less showy, austere beauty of nature there.

This pic was shot at Birch Lake, just outside Ely, just before sunset.

I used to wonder why Minnesotans – already surrounded by lakes – drive hours each summer just to get to another lake. I guess I don’t wonder anymore.

This is just about as far away from the hustle and bustle of KL as you can get.