a pea and a nut February 27, 2012

just visited one of my friend’s blog.

on one hand, I feel really happy for her amazing life.
on the other hand, it made me feel like my life was peanuts. I wish I could do so many more things and achieve much more in my life.

and yes, that shall be my goal from now on.

oolala

found my favourite channel, totally addicted to it~~

my lonely nights couldn’t get any better 🙂

lost February 25, 2012

I dont think anyone reads this anymore..
but I just need somewhere to spill my thoughts these days.

I think I am starting to not understand myself anymore.

fatigue September 8, 2011

cant believe it has been 5 months since I last posted..

I feel so embarassed that I failed to keep up with my postings while on exchange.oh wells, its over.

 

Have been so distracted by so many things ever since the start of the new semester, haven’t been focused.

Sorry, my lab group mates for being such a horrible groupmate thus far.

I am feeling so tired, mentally, emotionally and physically…for some reasons that even I am unclear of.

 

but come on chinyun, wake up! Its week 5 already, time to buck up.

Day 2 Part 2: Fisherman’s Wharf, Sea Lions and Alcatraz. April 9, 2011

After the farmer’s market, we continued walking east towards along the bay. Sarah suggested that we could walk to the AT&T park further down, so we did. But half way through, we decided that there was actually nothing interesting to see so we turned back and took the historic street car to fisherman’s wharf!

If I did not get it wrong, this is the historic street car.

Basically its like a tram that runs on a single route through a few main areas in SFO. The driver was a chinese and was nice to give us a discount when he saw us frantically trying to dig out small notes, 3 dollars off! Speaking about drivers, I noticed that most public transport drivers in SFO are Asians, or more specifically chinese in San Francisco. Which is quite odd for a city in America, probably due to the large chinese community.  If I am not wrong, the Chinese American population in San Francisco is almost 20% of its total population.  It really feels like part of China walking past Chinatown at any time of the day, where many chinese old folks will be out “shopping” and walking around. It feels really traditional, nothing like the rather dead Chinatown of LA. Interestingly, in the buses/trains, instructions and messages in Chinese comes after the one in English (right underneath it), which shows how strong the Chinese influence is in San Francisco.

So, we reached the fisherman’s wharf shortly.

and the first thing we did was to try the famed clam chowder. There were so many food stands to choose from and we finally decided on one with a relatively long queue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was never a fan of clam chowder so I could not really tell if it was nice, but it definitely tasted better than what I had back in UCLA. At least it was not too high in sodium and fresh clams and other ingredients could be seen. The fried calamari and prawns thing was quite tasty too, the secret to it is the batter and its not oily at all!

After lunch, we walked around the fisherman’s wharf area. Many shops selling souvenirs, food etc, those typically “touristy” shops.

Along the way, I also met my monkey brothers. (It’s a display  from a shop selling furniture and garden decorative items.. )

There was nothing much around fisherman’s wharf actually, just there to enjoy the pier and sea breeze. And yes, there were many many fat sea gulls walking/ flying around.

After that, we walked to Pier39, another “main attraction” along the bay area where the sea lions are! The sea lions are seriously fat and lazy, and to be honest, they are not exactly cute. 😛 and they like to howl a lot as well, I wonder what they were saying when they make that noise. It will be interesting to be able to understand the sea lions isn’t it?

But I think the sea lions are living evidence of good food+ good weather+ good life + sleep a lot= FAT!

Look at that sea gull (with skinny legs) in the midst of the fat sea lions! 😛

After Pier 39, we still had some time before our Alcatraz tour that night so we walked to Ghirardelli Square nearby which I am sure chocolate fans will be familiar with the chocolate brand Ghirardelli.

They used to make their chocolate right here at the square, but now the production factory is somewhere else. The square is actually quite big, with a few chocolate shops and caffe all selling Ghirardelli chocolates and desserts.  We were given free chocolate to sample as we walked into the shop and also ordered two very rich and sinful chocolate sundaes to share. The whole place was very crowded with a super long queue to the caffe.

The one on the left is Midnight Reverie dark chocolate sundae (dark chocolate,chocolate ice cream, milk chocolate fudge and whipped cream); The one on the right is Peanut Butter chocolate sundae (vanilla icecream, peanut butter, milk chocolate, dark chocolate fudge and whip cream).

The desserts are of course, sweet and there is far too much fudge and whipped cream than the ice cream itself. Oh well, Americans in general like their desserts real sweet so it was kind of expected. It was not too bad, ( speaking from someone who will rarely go for desserts containing chocolate)  but if I ever come here again, I would rather get just the simple Ghirardelli chocolate ice cream with waffle cone so I can actually taste the ice cream. I liked the dark chocolate squares here a lot though, the nice tinge of bitterness. (85% dark the best!)

Our last destination for the day was to Alcatraz Island.

 

View of Alcatraz island

sun set with the bay bridge at the back (taken from the ferry on the way to alcatraz)

(we took a night tour) Alcatraz is basically an offshore old prison. During the tour, we were given each an audio headset and we were supposed to listen and walked through the entire place on our own. It was quite a satisfying tour as I found it quite informative. The narrator of the audio was actually the actual former prison guards and ex-prisoners were also asked to give personal recounts of their experiences.  The sound effects were also really good.

To give you guys an idea of the size of a prison cell, here you go.  🙂

But otherwise, I was too cold and lazy to take out my camera…

Some reflections: The prison did not feel like a dark and scary place at all. In fact, I thought it was a quite pleasant place to stay in (we were shown a furnished prison cell, looks really cozy)

and the food served looked quite good as well. In terms of basic living conditions, I would say that it was decent, if the prisoners behaved “obediently”, I don’t think it will be bad at all. But  I guess what make prison life unbearable would be the mental torture the prisoners had to go through, with the harsh treatment from the prison guards, complete cutoff from the outside world and the constant desire for freedom. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that prisoners in general have some form of behavorial problem and rebellious in nature, so they might do “wrong” things unintentionally which will get them into trouble. After hearing to some of the stories from our guide, I felt happy for those prisoners who managed to get out of prison and to turn over a new leaf, becoming better persons. It was comforting to know that the prison was more than a dark and scary place I usually associate it with and Alcatraz actually did something good for these people. 🙂

I did not realize we did so much on day 2 until I needed to write about it..ok, end of Day 2., day 3 to come!

some thoughts.. April 3, 2011

Prior to my exchange in the US, there was a pre trip meet up with some staffs from the UCLA international education office back in NTU. I remembered being asked this question: What will you miss most from back home when you are in UCLA?

 

I said: I think I will miss dance and squash a lot, two activities that I am most involved in NTU. and I dont think they have squash nor the dance i do in UCLA (based on my research), so I wont be able to do it the 6 months I am there.

 

I did not mention family, partly because I have been living away from home since 12, and I am pretty much used to not seeing my family for extended periods of times already.

 

Well, now that I am here. Indeed, I realised that the only two things that I am missing from back home is NTU DSA and squash. I really miss dance practices, my hard core dance stamina training for competitions and performances; and also playing squash, I feel like my right arm haven’t been used for a long long time.

 

Of course, I miss the peeps in DSA and squash a lot! 😦  but hope you guys are doing really well in NTU!

 

Even so, I am really liking my life here in the US a lot, love the school, the place, the lifestyle and the all the wonderful people I have met so far.  If only they had something like DSA and squash down here, my life here will be perfect. 🙂

Happy April Fool’s Day! :D April 1, 2011

A short interruption to my trip series..

 

Today was a rather eventful day for me. (oh well, maybe in my opinion only. lol)

I started off the day with leaving my apartment super late for my 10am discussion, knowing that I will definitely be late. Actually, I reached campus at 10am on the dot walking to the classroom which I thought the discussion was supposed to be, and realised that I it was the wrong classroom!  So, I had to spend some time looking for the right classroom which made me even more late. but the funny thing was, when I entered the discussion classroom, there was only 5 people inside (who actually came for the class). haha, I pity the TA. and by the end of it, the TA decided to cancel discussion and set office hours instead. 😀 so no more 10am discussion for me this quarter!

 

and for my second discussion at 11am, once again, I could not find my classroom and was circling around the building for quite awhile. At that point, I was quite amused by my blurness. and I guess my human GPS power doesnt work within the UCLA campus.

 

For my last discussion of the day, the TA actually played a prank on us in making us do some insane derivation saying that it was a quiz..luckily I did not really waste too much brain cells to solve it since I decided right from the start that I could not do it and didnt care. this is my first time being tricked on April Fool’s day though.

 

and today ended with a pretty good meal in a Japanese Restaurant.  The funny thing is we wanted to prank eric and told him we were meeting at 4.30pm instead of 5pm. but in the end, for some reason, he appeared at 5.20pm which was even later than expected.. -_-

 

oh wells, pardon me for my very random post. 😛

Day 2 Part 1: Walk through chinatown, little italy and bay area March 30, 2011

Despite having very little sleep, we woke up quite early to start our day of exploring. Breakfast was rather chaotic since it was our first time making pancakes using the hostel’s facilities, took a rather long time and the pancakes turned out looking quite chao da..

 

We started the day by walking towards Chinatown, it was a rather short walk. We did not really spend time in Chinatown that morning, only passed by it and stopped by a shop called “Delicious Dim Sum” on Jackson St and got some hargow and siu mai for takeaway. The dimsums indeed lived up to its name, it was indeed rather “delicious”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at the satisfied faces of my dim sum ambassadors are 😀

 

We figured that we will come back to Chinatown some other day so we carried on walking to North Beach area (also known as Little Italy). The buildings there were quite interesting, lots of pubs/ nightclubs..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued walking towards the bay area where the piers are. I would say walking in SFO can be quite tiring as the whole city is full of slopes like this.. I was quite amazed by the topography of the city, how in the world can such a place become a city?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but they have pretty cool public transportation though, street cars, buses, trains, cables cars…which I will talk about later..

 

The bay area was quite nice, with many people , families and dogs taking walks/ jogs. The people here are really healthy and they really make it a point to spend family time on a Sunday morning as well. If I lived here, I would love to jog along the pier as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also an indoor farmer’s market at one of the piers. It was a nice place with many “atas” things inside, fresh produce, delicious looking organic food and pretty things, but too bad, no money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A shop selling pork was selling this shirt,

 

Which I found to be really amusing.

 

And i love my mushrooms!

 

Look at the cheese!! dont you think they look like books?

 

 

We left the farmer’s market shortly and continued exploring around the bay area. There were some random statues/ structures around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea why there are sea creatures figurines (turtles, star fishes etc) on the curb. but I liked them 😀

and there were many seagulls flying around. This one in particular posed for me to take a picture! also, there were many adorable doggies! America is such a dog-friendly country, the dogs here have such happy lives. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pier is really a nice place to hang out to chill/relax during the weekends. I also find the architecture in San Francisco really interesting, many nice buildings here.

 

Anyways, shall end this post with finally, a picture with my face. lol. 😛

 

That’s the bay bridge in the background!

Spring break trip day 1: It all started with a car ride..

I had an awesome spring break, thanks to the wonderful people whom I travelled with. Alvin-the best driver ever! Eric- my photographer. Sarah- my fellow tortoise sister backpacker! It was 10 days of fun, nice pictures and FANTASTIC food (thanks to my awesome yelping skills and Sarah’s trusty trip advisor :D)

 

It all started with a long long drive up to San Francisco. We started off at 9.30am and arrived in SFO at 10.30pm. The drive on the highway was quite scenic, with hills with broccoli looking bushes/trees on both sides of the road on most parts.  Of course, it didn’t really take 13 hours to reach San Francisco, we stopped by at Santa Barbara and Solvang along the way.

 

It was around 11.30am when we arrived at Santa Barbara. I liked Santa Barbara a lot, it’s a cute, peaceful and orderly town. Their buildings were all short (like those Japanese style houses) because there is a regulation in the town where the buildings must be kept below a certain height.  Perhaps that’s why the shortie me feel so at home here. 😀 They also have street signs with really cute font across the neighbourhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked to the pier where there was a sailing competition going on and shopped around a bit before we moved on to Solvang.

Oh, there was also a very peaceful demonstration for peace against the iraq war going on when we were there..Its by the Veteran for Peace Inc.

 

 

It was 2pm when we arrived at Solvang and we were starving so the first thing we did was to search for food. Solvang is a Danish village, so the buildings were all Danish influence, which I really liked as well. There were Danish merchandise, lots of their famed pastries and restaurants, basically a very touristy place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I did not really yelp about Solvang, we just walked into a random restaurant with a super long queue for our lunch- Solvang Restaurant. We tried traditional Danish food: open faced sandwiches, meatballs and sausages which were quite good, but no one really liked the purple sauerkraut (sour cabbage) thing which comes with the mains, I ate most of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dessert we tried (which was the main crowd puller) Aebleskivers, balls made of egg and flour tasted similar to waffles/pancakes, but the raspberry jam and icing sugar paired it really well.

 

 

After lunch, we went to the Hans Christian Andersen Musuem, where there were loads of books, especially the famed fairy tales. I love the pictures in chiildren’s books. The rows of books also reminded me of my house library back home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At around five, we dropped by a Danish bakery and grabbed some Danish pastries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at the yummilicious looking pastries. Indeed, the pastries we tried were heavenly.

The rest of the drive towards San Francisco was not very pleasant because of the rain and crosswinds blowing from the bay area. Thankfully we had a great driver who got us to our hostel in San Fran safe and sound. J

USA hostels SFO, which we stayed in for 6 nights was really pleasant, in our four bedded room with private toilet + breakfast with make-it-yourself pancakes. 30 dollars/person per night was a great deal!

 

I guess we were too tired by the time we arrived so my photographer did not take a picture of the room for me. But oh well, I was thankful that we survived the long drive in the rain. At the same time, I felt really sorry for Alvin who had to drive for more than 7 hours, struggling to keep awake. And  the drive also made him sick which carried on throughout the rest of the week…

 

But well, I guess the Angry Bird which sat right at the front mirror throughout the drive kept Alvin going 😛

 

 

 

 

That’s the end of day one, look out for more to come folks!

will be gone for 10 days March 19, 2011

Pardon me for my uninteresting title, I absolutely hate naming my posts..

 

Had an extremely awful end to my finals yesterday 😦   Why must all my finals end horribly? (have been happening for the past three semester back in NTU as well..) and then..Post Exam Trauma sets in which will keep me bothered for a couple of days..

Its a bad spell and I wonder when I can break this cycle..

 

Anyway, the musical on thursday night was really good!! its great to hear them sing live with live music, their voices were fantastic. Belle was really good, her voice somehow had the ability to make you feel really comfortable..(if you can get what i mean..) and the “bad” guy, Gaston was really amusing as well. and I actually did not like Beast throughout the musical, and i am pretty sure its not because he is UGLY. haha. but more because his acts where mostly very down and full of grumbling before he finally became the prince. nevertheless, his acting was really good and a powerful voice! and not forgeting the little boy, Chip (the teacup), his actual body frame is really puny! he was really cute though..must be so exciting for him to be in the BnB crew..

 

Pantages LA is a really nice theatre though..we got the furthest seats at the top level, but I could still everything quite clearly! so I might reconsider finding cheap, “lousy” seats for Burn the Floor, since now I know that the seats in Pantages are all pretty good.. 🙂

and towards the end of the show, I saw so many cute little kids walking out of the theatre, it was so funny! some little girls even dressed up in princessy dresses, I guess they had a great time too 🙂 Its really a musical suitable for all ages.

 

if anyone’s interested in pictures or trailer, its pretty much on their official website, http://www.beautyandthebeastontour.com/

since cameras were not allowed, so couldnt take any. but I would say hearing the singing live is exactly the same as listening the soundtrack from the CD! now I want to go for more musicals!

 

ok..I will probably update 10 days later since I wont be bringing my laptop along with me.

bye 😀