Seneca Lake

Seneca Lake is one of the five finger lakes in Ithaca. It's a huge lake surrounded by hills of vineyards. Seneca Lake trail is famous for its wine trail and grape winemaking.

There is a driving trail around the Seneca Lake but i did not go round the lake due to limited time i had. Therefore, i stopped at the Seneca Lake harbor to get the scenic view of the lake....

The colorful falls of Ithaca along the drive to Seneca lake

The Seneca Lake harbor

The view of the Seneca Lake (in the evening)

I had a great peaceful evening enjoying the breeze and the picturesque view of Seneca Lake

Ithaca is Gorges!

Fall break is here and it will end soon on Tuesday. I did nothing much this Fall break except shopping for winter jackets and also did a short trip to visit one of the falls in Ithaca and Seneca Lake. The break is short and before i get enough rest, it's time to be back in the battlefield of once the class starts again.


Do you know the best time to be in Ithaca is during the Falls? The reason behind is Ithaca is a countryside and it is full of natural beauty...and there are a lot of gorges (falls) around Ithaca. The wonders of nature is fascinating and it relaxes my mind and soul after all the stress from study and assignments. 


One of my recent visit was the Watkins Glen Gorge at Watkins Glen State Park. The gorge was really gorgeous and it took my breath away! The beauty of the gorge was incomparable to the waterfalls in Malaysia. It's sad to say this but it's true...The place is so well maintain with the park and the falls are profoundly beautiful with flora and fauna.


It is a must visit place if you are in Ithaca especially during Fall season @ Watkins Glen State Park and its gorge. 

Watkins Glen State Park

Watkins Glen Gorge ~ isn't it spectacular??!!

The beauteous landscape of Watkins Glen gorge

Far view of the gorge

The gushing fall of the Watkins Glen gorge...it's gorges!

Natural beauty of Watkins Glen state park during fall season...

Grapes picking

I love grapes and i finally found a farm which i could do grapes picking! Yeah, i can pick my own fresh grapes! I have always buying grapes in supermarket and i have no way to get fresh grapes especially when i was in Malaysia. All grapes are imported in to Malaysia and there is no way to get fresh grapes and even the taste is super different...

The grapes here are so sweet and they have sweet flavor with rich rosy sweetness of pungent when I eat them in my mouth. It's really good! Moreover, with me being able to choose the grapes and pick the grapes which i wanted, the experience was indescribable! I had a lot of fun and good time with my sister and our friends picking the local traditional grapes from Ithaca. They were grown from Ithaca and has been grown over many generations...The grapes varieties which I picked and ate were Concord, Catawba, Niagara and Delaware. And the grapes sold there were really cheap...it was $0.45 per pound! I got 6 pounds of grapes with only $2.70! i had 2 weeks of grapes!

Concord grapes

 Delaware grapes - small red grapes with sweet flavor

Niagara grapes

Picture taken with the farm owner. She was a sweet lady ^_^

Cornell Homecoming Football game

I had my first live American football game when Cornell had its homecoming football game against Yale on September 25, 2010. My friend, Assel and Sam came with me to watch the homecoming game.

It was held at Cornell Football stadium and graduate students got free entrance to watch the game! Yippee!!!

Though i did not really understand how the game worked, but it was fun to watch a group of "big" guys ran over each other over a "small" football to get touch down. And they even had cheerleaders and the band to cheer for Cornell football team. However, it's unfortunate that Cornell lost to Yale by 7:21. It was a great lost but it was a good experience for me to watch live football. In addition with the great companions i had, they made my day a spectacular one!

The football game is on! Go go Cornell! (Red was Cornell and white was Yale)

The Cornell band performance

Our Cornell "Big red Bear!"

The cheerleading squad

A night out with my roommates

I am blessed with 3 wonderful yet friendly room mates! They are Kaity from NYC, Pratima from Toronto, and Yoganya from Melbourne. All of us come from all around the world. What a wonderful mix!

Well, after being busy hunting for classes in the first 2 weeks, we finally had some time for dinner together. We had our girls' night out and we had a sumptuous dinner at a Vietnamese Restaurant and we started to get to know each other better...everyone was shocked to know that i am married and have 2 kids! Ahaha...guessed i really don't look like a married woman or maybe i looked very young (which is a compliment to me).

We had a long chat and hang out for that night...it was a great night out with my room mates!

My room mates! They are wonderful girls!

Had my first play on darts...really interesting game and it's not too difficult to learn..

Apple picking

It's apple season during fall and I went apple picking with my dear sister around the Onondaga County. We went to Beak and Skiff Apple Farm. It's my first time to see apple trees and actually pick fresh apples!!! How exciting!

The are many varieties of apple and on the day of our trip, only Jonamac apple was available for picking. So we boarded on farm tractor which brought us into the apple farm where we could pick the apples.... It was a great experience to sat on a tractor and enjoyed the scenic view of apple tress surrounding us!

I enjoyed picking the apples and also eating them at the same time...the apples fresh from the tress were definitely the best and could not be compared to any of the apples sold in the supermarket. They were so crispy and crunchy yet juicy and sweet! yummy apples!!!

I was riding on a tractor - taking me in to the farm

Jonamac apple - juicy and sweet!

glorious apples!

Fried apple fritter - homemade and extremely tasty with fresh cooked-apple filling! I love this fritters! It tasted like doughnut and sprinkled with cinnamon powder

First Week at Cornell - the first impression

Apologies for not updating my blog...been very busy since day 1 here at Cornell...everything was different from Malaysia...the culture, the people, the lifestyle, the campus and even the standard of expectations!

I had quite a good first week by knowing some of my coursemates and they all came from all walks of life...from Taiwan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Canada and many more...

Some were really friendly and nice but they were a couple of people who didn't want to mix with people at all...

Anyway, the first week was more like hunting for classes..and you can see everyone really like "girls crazy shopping during sales". You could practically see that everyone rushing here and there to try this class and other classes....and most of the classes were packed with people, especially for the classes with really good and famous professor.

Here are some snapshots of my campus and also my apartment. It's a 4 shared bedroom apartment and it's really small! The bedroom is super small and i have no space to walk at all, except for a small lane good enough for me to walk. I would say the apartment rental was overpriced and the apartment condition was too old and quite dilapidated. I couldn't sleep at all for the first week with the AC/heater on as the ancient AC was extremely noisy and annoying with its grumbling sound each time i switched it one...

Barton Hall...(hall for all student activities)

Maplewood - the place where i stay

Ho Plaza...free lunch for the first day of class

View of the Cornell football stadium

View outside of my apartment

My apartment - small huh??