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09.20.03 - oh the efficiency! |
welcome to ucla |
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say farewell to bao
this morning we got up and drove to ucla (it wasn't that far from the hotel, maybe 8 miles). today was bao's official move in day. i figured it would be a chaotic mess of cars and families and boxes and laundry bags and more boxes. but amazingly it wasn't. it was the most efficient process i have ever seen. when we arrived they redirected us to a parking garage. we then unloaded bao's stuff in one spot and then parked the car in another. while i was parking the car a shuttle van arrived and bao and my dad loaded all of bao's stuff into the van. when i came back we all hopped into the van and were driven to the front of the dorms. THEN all of the stuff was taken from the van and put onto golf carts. the golf carts drove us right to the front door of the dorm, where they had big yellow containers on wheels. we put the stuff into the containers and then put it on the elevator and wheeled it to bao's new room. it is small. there are 3 of them in it too.
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one last lunch |
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chapter 2: and then we say goodbye to bao after we finished unpacking his stuff (in which he seriously, no joke, opened up a desk drawer took one of his packed boxes, opened it and literally dumped the contents into the drawer like he was in a bad movie), we decided to walk around the campus for a bit. my dad also thought it would be smart to buy his class books now. i think bao thought so too since it was dad's credit card buying the books. after walking around for a bit, we finally had to stop for lunch. i was starving, we didn't eat breakfast and stamina was dropping fast. so we got sandwiches at an on campus deli. i forgot to ask for no mayonnaise, but i guess it was still an okay sandwich. sidenote: if i had known ucla was such a neat campus, i probably would have gone there instead...
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 kinder eggs?!? |
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they sell these in the USA?
after walking around we decided to head back to bao's dorm to say goodbye. i could tell he didn't want to hang out with us anymore, but who could blame him. first day of college. you need to meet people. on our way back to the dorm bao declared that he needed to buy q-tips. so we stopped at the student store (since it was on the way). when we approached the checkout i nearly stopped dead in my tracks. they had kinder-eggs!! no one has kinder-eggs around here. and i thought they couldn't sell them in the US because of the small pieces. who knew? kinder-eggs in the usa only at ucla. sidenote: for those of you who don't know, kinder-egg is a slightly overrated chocolate egg with a toy surprise inside.
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universal studios |
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let's go on the tour
after saying goodbye to bao (who, i might add, didn't even walk us out of the building) my dad declared that he would like to go to universal studios. he wanted to go on the studio tour. i'd never been there before so i figured it sounded like something to do and i'm sure it would be pretty fun. so we called up samshrew to get directions and off we went.
universal studios is a strange place. it's an amusement park for people who don't like roller coasters or those who REALLY like movies. good thing i like movies. i also am a secret sucker for amusement parks. i think it is because i am mostly a giant 10 year old. which, i think is pretty endearing right now, but what will it be like when i'm 40. i think it might just be depressing. i hope not. to keep up with the kid theme, i had to have a caramel apple while i was there. i used to think caramel apple's were the best. luckily i was not disappointed. this one was a caramel apple dipped in chocolate and covered in snickers. it was the world's fassest caramel apple. it wasn't disappointing, and it was really tasty, but i should've gone with a plain caramel apple. because well it's a totally different experience. sidenote: since we'd spent the afternoon with bao, we didn't really get to see much of the park. luckily they had a year pass for $5 more, so we decided to go back tomorrow morning.
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citywalk |
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i thought nobody walked in LA
once we'd seen everything we could, we left the park and headed over to the citywalk. the citywalk is pretty much right next door to (if not part of) universal studios. it's a few blocks long and consists of larger than life shops and eateries. mostly eateries. we came up with two choices, one eat dinner somewhere in the citywalk, or go somewhere else. since neither of us know the area very well, we decided we'd stay there. we ended up settling on this seafood place. when we walked in i was completely weirded out, there was a large tub of peanuts and a million shells on the floor. my dad says that that's how traditional places do it. i couldn't believe that any restaurant would want that much trash on the floor. but then, what do i know, it's all for the ambience i suppose. for dinner i decided on a horseradish/cheese/potato encrusted piece of salmon with asparagus. when it arrived i noted that the chef had made it appear like a crab. i think i will steal that idea some day.
sidenote: the top photo is the hard rock cafe shop, one of my dad's friends collects hard rock cafe stuff and asked him to get her something if he saw one. i have no idea why the one cashier put the bag over the other. i think they might have been crazy.
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read yesterday's menu
--- read tomorrow's menu
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