Thursday, June 17, 2010
Around the World in 75 Days
I've always wanted to fly around the world and now I finally get to do it!! First stop: New York City.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Muir Woods
Some pictures of Muir Woods National Park, curtesy of X. Lots of really big and tall redwood trees. It's so strange. Most of the landscape around this area (most of Cali) consists of gentle, rolling hills with brown grass and shrubs. These redwoods live in a valley between these hills. Once you get out of the valley, the landscape changes dramatically.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
My passport is filling up fast
I picked up my visa for Indonesia today!! Yay, I'm glad it went so smoothly. I dragged my brother along and we walked through a bit of Chinatown, North Beach, and the downtown area.
Slight change of travel plans. I realized that with 60 days in Indonesia, we're out of the country on August 27th. I've been pretty worried about my subletting situation. I'm supposed to move out of my current place and move into my new apartment by Sept 1st. So instead of hanging out somewhere in Southeast Asia for 10 days after the project, I decided to come back on the 30th and take care of all my apartment stuff. This still gives me about 3 nights in Singapore. And the flight I chose has an 8hr layover in Taipei. So depending on how on time that flight is and now tired I am, I might go walk around Taipei for a little bit.
So this summer's city/country hopping is looking like:
New York City
Cambridge, UK
Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, Malaysia
Padang, Indonesia (and maybe nearby towns)
Singapore
Taipei, Taiwan
This is all starting this Thursday night. Too soon... I'm pretty much all packed now except for a few miscellaneous things. Still trying to decide whether or not to bring the sleeping bag. I think it will come in handy. All my stuff fit and is at 40lb right now. So it's not bad. But I think my stuff can be a lot more organized without the sleeping bag. Oh wells.
Slight change of travel plans. I realized that with 60 days in Indonesia, we're out of the country on August 27th. I've been pretty worried about my subletting situation. I'm supposed to move out of my current place and move into my new apartment by Sept 1st. So instead of hanging out somewhere in Southeast Asia for 10 days after the project, I decided to come back on the 30th and take care of all my apartment stuff. This still gives me about 3 nights in Singapore. And the flight I chose has an 8hr layover in Taipei. So depending on how on time that flight is and now tired I am, I might go walk around Taipei for a little bit.
So this summer's city/country hopping is looking like:
New York City
Cambridge, UK
Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, Malaysia
Padang, Indonesia (and maybe nearby towns)
Singapore
Taipei, Taiwan
This is all starting this Thursday night. Too soon... I'm pretty much all packed now except for a few miscellaneous things. Still trying to decide whether or not to bring the sleeping bag. I think it will come in handy. All my stuff fit and is at 40lb right now. So it's not bad. But I think my stuff can be a lot more organized without the sleeping bag. Oh wells.
Monday, June 14, 2010
End of first year. Part 2
I think I ended on Thursday last time. So now onto the weekend.
Friday. Wasn't too eventful in the beginning. I just sat around wishing I had nothing to do so that I can watch Conan. =) X went to lunch with a friend so I went out to get a few things done, printed, met with people, etc. We did some final packing and my mom and brother came to pick us up. On the drive back, X got to see downtown Palo Alto, finally. I feel bad since I didn't really have time to take her around. Places are already hard to get to when you're living at Stanford. And when you've been here for a while, things are not exciting anymore. It's kind of like when Yalu visited me in England, I was like, and here's some other old building. Or when one of my HS teachers visited me at MIT. He was very impressed (shocked?) by the Stata building and I was like, "what? that thing?"
We moved a bunch of my stuff back home and then we went out for dinner in Chinatown. I tried to get my parents to go to a Thai place near our house but was unsuccessful. Maybe next time... We had a big dinner in Chinatown, at the Peony Restaurant, where my parents always go.
Saturday. It was hot. Very hot. X and I went walking around Lake Merritt, Chinatown, and Jack London Square. We stopped at the Bookmark Bookstore to cool down in Old Oakland. It was way too hot to do very much, we didn't feel like walking around that much. The big Barnes and Nobles at Jack London Square closed down. So sad! It's just one big empty building now. You could tell that the building was originally built for the bookstore plus cafe. I've spent a lot of time in that bookstore. So sad it had to close. There were a few new developments in that waterfront area. But one of the buildings look empty. Didn't look like anyone was leasing the space. That area could be really nice if people wanted to invest in it. I mean, it's a really nice waterfront area so hopefully more businesses will move in.
We got back and met up with one of X's friends. He took us to Muir Wood. It's a nice national park north of San Francisco. There are huge redwood trees there and a nice and easy trail to walk around in. Very good for family outings. The groves of redwood are in a valley. It's kind of strange actually. Most of the landscape around the area are rolling hills with yellow-brown grass and bushes. Not forest-like at all. And then you descend into the valley and all of a sudden, there are big trees. We stopped by a few vintage points to see the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
We decided to go to Japantown for dinner. I realized I had never been to Japantown in SF. It's actually pretty interesting. It was one of the first establishments of Japanese people on the continental US. It was a pretty big neighborhood until WWII came along and all the Japanese people got shipped to detention camps. Now there's only a couple of blocks of shops and such.
When we got to Japantown, X called one of friends and he came and joined us for dinner. We ate my snacks while we waited. Good thing I brought snacks! We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant that mainly served sushi.
Sunday. I had dim sum with my family and they drove me back to Stanford to watch the CEE graduation. I got there just as they were going to call out names and walk people. Great timing since the department head is not that great of a speaker... They kept mentioning accomplishments of professors and people who were not graduating. So lame. You would think that if they spend any time at all mentioning people, it would be of the graduates and stuff that they've done this year. The CEE graduation was inside Memorial Auditorium. This was really nice since it's always super hot outside on graduation day. I walked by a lot of other graduations that were taking place outside. There was a reception outside after the ceremony. It was pretty difficult to find people since there was a huge congregation of people. The little alley was too small to handle so much people. You can invite an unlimited number of guests so people had a lot of guests.
Friday. Wasn't too eventful in the beginning. I just sat around wishing I had nothing to do so that I can watch Conan. =) X went to lunch with a friend so I went out to get a few things done, printed, met with people, etc. We did some final packing and my mom and brother came to pick us up. On the drive back, X got to see downtown Palo Alto, finally. I feel bad since I didn't really have time to take her around. Places are already hard to get to when you're living at Stanford. And when you've been here for a while, things are not exciting anymore. It's kind of like when Yalu visited me in England, I was like, and here's some other old building. Or when one of my HS teachers visited me at MIT. He was very impressed (shocked?) by the Stata building and I was like, "what? that thing?"
We moved a bunch of my stuff back home and then we went out for dinner in Chinatown. I tried to get my parents to go to a Thai place near our house but was unsuccessful. Maybe next time... We had a big dinner in Chinatown, at the Peony Restaurant, where my parents always go.
Saturday. It was hot. Very hot. X and I went walking around Lake Merritt, Chinatown, and Jack London Square. We stopped at the Bookmark Bookstore to cool down in Old Oakland. It was way too hot to do very much, we didn't feel like walking around that much. The big Barnes and Nobles at Jack London Square closed down. So sad! It's just one big empty building now. You could tell that the building was originally built for the bookstore plus cafe. I've spent a lot of time in that bookstore. So sad it had to close. There were a few new developments in that waterfront area. But one of the buildings look empty. Didn't look like anyone was leasing the space. That area could be really nice if people wanted to invest in it. I mean, it's a really nice waterfront area so hopefully more businesses will move in.
We got back and met up with one of X's friends. He took us to Muir Wood. It's a nice national park north of San Francisco. There are huge redwood trees there and a nice and easy trail to walk around in. Very good for family outings. The groves of redwood are in a valley. It's kind of strange actually. Most of the landscape around the area are rolling hills with yellow-brown grass and bushes. Not forest-like at all. And then you descend into the valley and all of a sudden, there are big trees. We stopped by a few vintage points to see the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
We decided to go to Japantown for dinner. I realized I had never been to Japantown in SF. It's actually pretty interesting. It was one of the first establishments of Japanese people on the continental US. It was a pretty big neighborhood until WWII came along and all the Japanese people got shipped to detention camps. Now there's only a couple of blocks of shops and such.
When we got to Japantown, X called one of friends and he came and joined us for dinner. We ate my snacks while we waited. Good thing I brought snacks! We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant that mainly served sushi.
Sunday. I had dim sum with my family and they drove me back to Stanford to watch the CEE graduation. I got there just as they were going to call out names and walk people. Great timing since the department head is not that great of a speaker... They kept mentioning accomplishments of professors and people who were not graduating. So lame. You would think that if they spend any time at all mentioning people, it would be of the graduates and stuff that they've done this year. The CEE graduation was inside Memorial Auditorium. This was really nice since it's always super hot outside on graduation day. I walked by a lot of other graduations that were taking place outside. There was a reception outside after the ceremony. It was pretty difficult to find people since there was a huge congregation of people. The little alley was too small to handle so much people. You can invite an unlimited number of guests so people had a lot of guests.
Friday, June 11, 2010
End of first year. Part 1
This has been one really long week... I'm moving back home for a little while and then heading off on a long journey. My trips and things are on the left panel. For everyone who's reading by RSS feed, you'll have to come to the actual website to see it. I have all the flights and things listed. Maybe more for my benefit than anyone else's. Everything is listed in local time.
Recap of this past week:
Monday. Long meeting with ESW team. We talked about goals for the summer and such. The meeting was so long that I picked up my take home final a few hours after it was available. Not the ideal situation but whatever. I spent the rest of the night working on the final.
Tuesday. Turned in the take home final in the morning. Started packing in the afternoon. I was pretty far along until I had to go to a meeting for my ESW group at night. Packing tired me out so I was not very lucid during our meeting.
Wednesday. I moved everything out of the room in the morning. Moved most stuff into one of the closets and the living room. Met up with the other guy who's going on this Indonesia trip and we decided on dates and flights. Went to a lunch with the geo group people at Castro Street. We went for dim sum, played around at a pet shop, had bubble tea, and then walked around this world market shop. It was a lot of fun. Then I went to a BBQ with some AAGSA people. People brought a lot of food to the BBQ but there were a lot of people and the fire wasn't very hot. So there was a lot of waiting and not too much eating in the beginning. We moved to a gas grill later on and that worked out much better. After that, I joined my ESW group again and we worked until around midnight when most of my group decided to go to a party.
Thursday. After deciding on our flights the day before. I decided it was time to go back to the embassy and submit my application for a visa again. Xiumin had a meeting with a company so it worked out great. I tried to activate my SFCU debit card but the ATM asked for a pin, which I never set up.
This SFCU thing does not seem to have very efficient customer service. I've had to go back to the branch several times to get things worked out already. Even had to call some for technical assistance to get external transfer set up. So dumb. You'd think they'd have all this stuff figured out by now. For example, why would you send someone a debit card and ask them to activate it by going to an ATM when they've never chosen a pin before?
After failing to activate my SFCU debit card, X and I went to my office where I bought my flights from KL to Padang and back. We managed to print this out and headed to SF. On the train ride there, I remembered I had to get a bank statement and cash for the visa. Luckily, there's a BOA branch right by the train station so I managed to get both of these things before going to the embassy. Everything went pretty smoothly at the embassy. The guy took my application along with all the application materials. The processing time is 2-5 days so I'll go back on Tuesday. After this I walked over to Chinatown and got a haircut. I miss the city life. It would be so nice to live near Chinatown and have everything I ever want within walking distance. Then I went back to meet up with X and we went to REI to buy a pair of sandals that I've been thinking about for a long time.
We got back in on campus and went to the SEG pool party. We chatted with various people and hung around. Didn't go in the pool. I didn't feel like changing into my bathing suit and people were pretty rowdy over there. We ate a lot and then went running afterward. We did laundry and packed some more after that.
This post is getting too long so I'll stop here for now.
Recap of this past week:
Monday. Long meeting with ESW team. We talked about goals for the summer and such. The meeting was so long that I picked up my take home final a few hours after it was available. Not the ideal situation but whatever. I spent the rest of the night working on the final.
Tuesday. Turned in the take home final in the morning. Started packing in the afternoon. I was pretty far along until I had to go to a meeting for my ESW group at night. Packing tired me out so I was not very lucid during our meeting.
Wednesday. I moved everything out of the room in the morning. Moved most stuff into one of the closets and the living room. Met up with the other guy who's going on this Indonesia trip and we decided on dates and flights. Went to a lunch with the geo group people at Castro Street. We went for dim sum, played around at a pet shop, had bubble tea, and then walked around this world market shop. It was a lot of fun. Then I went to a BBQ with some AAGSA people. People brought a lot of food to the BBQ but there were a lot of people and the fire wasn't very hot. So there was a lot of waiting and not too much eating in the beginning. We moved to a gas grill later on and that worked out much better. After that, I joined my ESW group again and we worked until around midnight when most of my group decided to go to a party.
Thursday. After deciding on our flights the day before. I decided it was time to go back to the embassy and submit my application for a visa again. Xiumin had a meeting with a company so it worked out great. I tried to activate my SFCU debit card but the ATM asked for a pin, which I never set up.
This SFCU thing does not seem to have very efficient customer service. I've had to go back to the branch several times to get things worked out already. Even had to call some for technical assistance to get external transfer set up. So dumb. You'd think they'd have all this stuff figured out by now. For example, why would you send someone a debit card and ask them to activate it by going to an ATM when they've never chosen a pin before?
After failing to activate my SFCU debit card, X and I went to my office where I bought my flights from KL to Padang and back. We managed to print this out and headed to SF. On the train ride there, I remembered I had to get a bank statement and cash for the visa. Luckily, there's a BOA branch right by the train station so I managed to get both of these things before going to the embassy. Everything went pretty smoothly at the embassy. The guy took my application along with all the application materials. The processing time is 2-5 days so I'll go back on Tuesday. After this I walked over to Chinatown and got a haircut. I miss the city life. It would be so nice to live near Chinatown and have everything I ever want within walking distance. Then I went back to meet up with X and we went to REI to buy a pair of sandals that I've been thinking about for a long time.
We got back in on campus and went to the SEG pool party. We chatted with various people and hung around. Didn't go in the pool. I didn't feel like changing into my bathing suit and people were pretty rowdy over there. We ate a lot and then went running afterward. We did laundry and packed some more after that.
This post is getting too long so I'll stop here for now.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Almost there
Finished 1 out of 2 take-home finals this quarter! Yay! I have a break between now and my next take home final, which will be distributed Monday afternoon. By a break, I mean that I will be working on the final deliverable for the soil berm project.
Today was a pretty productive day. I did laundry and cleaned the apartment, like all other Saturdays. Then I went out to lunch with some of Xiumin's friends. We went to Castro St for some very yummy Thai food and bubble tea. They dropped me off back at Rains and headed off to Half Moon Bay. Wish I could go with them to the beach but I have a lot of work to do.
When I got back, I finally managed to book a ticket to go from London to KL. Flying on a super cheap airline (Air Asia) for long distance (13 hrs). We'll see how that goes. No entertainment, need to pay extra for food, advance pick of seats, and baggage. But since they're out of Stansted instead of Heathrow, this makes up for the baggage fee. I had to pay for this flight with my HSBC card because the website wouldn't accept my BOA card. But even the HSBC card failed twice and I got 2 calls right away from HSBC asking me to confirm this purchase. Turns out, it was HSBC who stopped the transaction. But it all worked out in the end and now I'm finally feeling like I'm going to Southeast Asia.
I also realized this morning that even though I've been looking at maps of Padang all quarter, I have no idea what the rest of the country or the surrounding countries are like. I think I need to buy another one of these all encompassing guidebooks again. I think they're worthy investments.
After booking the ticket, I went to a SWE BBQ and chatted with some people. Not a lot of people showed up initially so some people started calling their friends. Stanford people are not as keen on getting free food for some reason. Must be the availability of food in dining halls.
I showered after I got back and started working on a take-home exam. Just finished it and can now relax for the rest of the evening. I also need to start packing up my room. I packed 2 boxes earlier but they aren't very full. Didn't want them to be super heavy and didn't exactly want my room to be in a mess right now.
Hopefully I'll get lots of work done tomorrow too. There are a few study breaks tomorrow too so they'll give me a chance to get out of this hot, stuffy apartment!
Today was a pretty productive day. I did laundry and cleaned the apartment, like all other Saturdays. Then I went out to lunch with some of Xiumin's friends. We went to Castro St for some very yummy Thai food and bubble tea. They dropped me off back at Rains and headed off to Half Moon Bay. Wish I could go with them to the beach but I have a lot of work to do.
When I got back, I finally managed to book a ticket to go from London to KL. Flying on a super cheap airline (Air Asia) for long distance (13 hrs). We'll see how that goes. No entertainment, need to pay extra for food, advance pick of seats, and baggage. But since they're out of Stansted instead of Heathrow, this makes up for the baggage fee. I had to pay for this flight with my HSBC card because the website wouldn't accept my BOA card. But even the HSBC card failed twice and I got 2 calls right away from HSBC asking me to confirm this purchase. Turns out, it was HSBC who stopped the transaction. But it all worked out in the end and now I'm finally feeling like I'm going to Southeast Asia.
I also realized this morning that even though I've been looking at maps of Padang all quarter, I have no idea what the rest of the country or the surrounding countries are like. I think I need to buy another one of these all encompassing guidebooks again. I think they're worthy investments.
After booking the ticket, I went to a SWE BBQ and chatted with some people. Not a lot of people showed up initially so some people started calling their friends. Stanford people are not as keen on getting free food for some reason. Must be the availability of food in dining halls.
I showered after I got back and started working on a take-home exam. Just finished it and can now relax for the rest of the evening. I also need to start packing up my room. I packed 2 boxes earlier but they aren't very full. Didn't want them to be super heavy and didn't exactly want my room to be in a mess right now.
Hopefully I'll get lots of work done tomorrow too. There are a few study breaks tomorrow too so they'll give me a chance to get out of this hot, stuffy apartment!
Short update - last week of classes
This past week has been pretty crazy. I don't even remember the last time I actually blogged instead of just posting random links. I pretty much spent last Saturday - Tuesday working on a homework and project, pretty much non-stop. There were a few social events here and there. There was a pig roast on Sunday at my dorm. The pig was pretty good. On Wednesday, we finally gave our presentation for the Indonesia project. There were a quite a few guests attending the presentations. I think we did pretty well and didn't go too much overtime. Xiumin arrived that day so I dragged her to the presentations too.
I went to work Thursday and Friday. I was actually pretty busy on Friday. I was doing some HR related stuff in the morning when people started arriving and wanted to go downstairs for bagels. So I got bagels with people and then was about to head to a meeting with the HR person when I got an email from one of the guys asking me to make a few changes for a meeting with my supervisor. Luckily, the HR meeting didn't take very long and I was able to finish everything just in time for a meeting with my supervisor and a few other people. Literally, just in time. The meeting went a little long so we actually had to push back my goodbye lunch by half an hour. Everyone came out for the lunch, even the supervisor. We went to a Thai place that had pretty good food.
Haven't had time to go exploring SF with X yet. So busy. I still have 2 take-home finals to do, 1 project to finish up, and a whole room to pack. So close... And then I need to seriously plan out my travels.
I went to work Thursday and Friday. I was actually pretty busy on Friday. I was doing some HR related stuff in the morning when people started arriving and wanted to go downstairs for bagels. So I got bagels with people and then was about to head to a meeting with the HR person when I got an email from one of the guys asking me to make a few changes for a meeting with my supervisor. Luckily, the HR meeting didn't take very long and I was able to finish everything just in time for a meeting with my supervisor and a few other people. Literally, just in time. The meeting went a little long so we actually had to push back my goodbye lunch by half an hour. Everyone came out for the lunch, even the supervisor. We went to a Thai place that had pretty good food.
Haven't had time to go exploring SF with X yet. So busy. I still have 2 take-home finals to do, 1 project to finish up, and a whole room to pack. So close... And then I need to seriously plan out my travels.
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