...but went to Universal Studios and saw Chris Tomlin in Concert!

...so Deborah had to be my GPS

...to Verdi's house for dinner

I expected to stay home and do the powerpoint for the group presentation next week, but Verdi's invitation to dinner extended to me too! It was impolite to refuse so Amanda, Lois and I got a ride to his house in Costa Mesa.

It was not a sit-down kind of dinner, but the stand up and cook and eat and drink at the same time kind. Like those they have in Turkey, where Verdi comes from. Good music in the background (Maroon 5, James Blunt, the Beatles), good conversation, and a nice viewing of pictures from the others' Yosemite trip. The whole thing lasted about 4plus hours, til 1245am!

Menu (so you can see that my appetite has increased):
-Guacamole
-Tortilla Chips x many many
-Tomato and Cucumber Salad x muchmuch
-DIY Burrito x 2
-Fish steak x 1
-Leftovers Soup x 1 bowl
-Wine/Orange+Mango Juice x 2 glasses
-Herbal Tea that was mostly an Oregano infusion x 1 mug

Amanda making the guacamole

Lois preparing the tomatoes for the burrito

Verdi making the fish

Busy in the kitchen!

Food!

My first burrito.

My second burrito.

making the burritos.

The wine we drank.

Soup made from the leftovers of the food cos we couldn't finish all of it!

...cos we had Pho for supper!

There's this 'Little Saigon' area in Garden Grove, about 10min drive from Irvine. It feels like Vietnam there, even though I've never been to Vietnam. It's special cos there's this place which has a 50% discount on all beef bowls and the Pho is really really good!!

If you didn't already know, I love Pho.

Whenever I go to the Biz canteen at NUS, I eat Pho. (I've never tried the western though I heard it's nice. I've tried the chicken rice twice. And stuff from the drinks/dessert store.) Why? I must have my Vietnamese Beef Noodles! (Despite the Vietnamese saying it isn't nice there.)Xintian and Shumin can attest to this fact.

So, after some of the other exchange students came back from The Price Is Right in LA (they didn't get to participate but saw Drew Carey and the Dodgers, and two participants WON CARS), we went to get Pho-ed! At 10pm on a school night!


The interior of the restaurant.


Menu! Only the first item matters, the rest don't


I LOVE YOU


Too busy to look at the camera.


Unlike us, always ready!

...and caught the Superbowl on TV!!!

I'm like waiting in the library for my study group mates cos our midterm's on Wed (yes, on a sunday night no less) and here midterms seem to be as or even more important than the finals. the library and student center is completely full of people. It's just crazy. And they're not replying me so I don't know where to meet. Which is bad cos I need a ride home!!

Apart from that, I just watched the Superbowl XLIII on TV! American football has many things in common with rugby in terms of tackling and touch rugby in terms of strategy, so I wasn't that lost. There's even more rules than Netball and 1 min can seem like an eternity.

MAN WAS IT EXCITING OR WHAT??!?!?!

Pittsburgh Steelers 27-24 Arizona Cardinals

The long runs, the tackling, the near-misses. WOW! And the score is so close!! I bet for a moment there all the Steelers fans started crying and praying really hard, cos their prayers worked and they won in the end. What a game.

We watched it in place of having Bible Study so there was Korean food and a 57-inch HDTV and 2 yappy dogs and great company. Thanks to Elias for his house! His roommates are something else. The big, tall, busty, bimbo-looking party girl type. But their bathroom is really really clean! With a hello kitty soap dispenser and a pink pig mug.

Upload photos when I can.

Meanwhile, my housemates went to Joshua Tree National Park for the weekend to climb real rocks so I had the whole weekend to myself! They came back with bloodied and bruised limbs. I wanna go too!

The apartment was just next to Saddleback Church's main campus.

Jennifer Hudson singing the national anthem.Food!!


Elias' dogs. They kept wanting to eat the food.

Nancy, Soo-young, Jo, Julie

Elias, whose house we were at, and Frances

Final Score!

...and went to South Coast Plaza!

Left the house a bit late and made the bus driver wait for us to cross the road to get to the bus. Terrible. Missed the stop and wanted to walk all the way back to Alton (10 mins by bus, 1 hr by walking) but Kenny saved us! Kenny is this guy who went on exchange to Thailand so he was being friendly by offering to drive us to South Coast. By then we had already made our way to 99 Ranch where we had BUBBLE TEA. (Lippy they call it Boba tea here and it's like $4, so ex!) He picked us up and called his girlfriend Sarah and his buddy Brent to meet us at the..

High class, Takashimaya-like shopping centre! that was Indoor! Check out some of the stores. Xiaoyun, wish you were here? I got an A&F bag! Then lost the mood to shop. Even though Aldo was having 70% off. Zara 50%.

Yam Milk Tea.

Abercrombie and Fitch where I got an $80 bag for $24.90 (without tax)
Said bag.

Paul Frank store.

H&M

Zara

Banana Republic

Xy's fave shop. Ted Baker.

My future fave shop - Burberry

Where we had lunch. Mexican food! It's called Wahoo cos that's what you say once you eat the food.

My wet burrito in front (meaning drenched in sauce and cheese!), Lois' taco with rice behind.

Altogether now!

The rest of the people starting planning their quarter-end trip to various locations in the states while I bought my ticket to San Francisco, back at our apartment. Then we watched Family Guy and South Park for some comedic relief. Dinner was yesterday's leftovers.

More crabs! and soybean milk!

Of course, this can't compare to what's happening at home right now. I got a calling card and have been trying to use it but it only connects to Canada and not to Singapore! ARGH!

check for backdated posts of the many dinners I had this past week.

...and had Reunion Dinner, exchange student style.

The day dawned bright and sunny, Californian style..not. It was dreary and gloomy and rainy, London-style. But the weather didn't dampen our moods cos it was Chinese New Year! Like every good Irvine-ian Chinese, we stopped at 99 Ranch Supermarket to get our groceries.

Check out the goodies! The music was the usual CNY songs.

The real reason we came here: SEAFOOD. Huge lobster! There's a free steaming service, which was good cos we don't have pots big enough to fit the crabs.

So many varieties of the stuff, we didn't know what to buy!But we were sure we wanted crabs. The sign says "1 for $1.99." How cheap is that?!

Chinese supermarket filled with Asian premixes. Even Filipino ones.

Tribute to the crab just before I chopped it up.

Taking photos while waiting for the others to hurry so we could eat!!

Except for the crabs, we cooked the rest of the food. Cooked!!! By ourselves!!!

NUS Exchange Students to UCI 2009! Yvette's missing cos she's taking the photo.

The apartment really is that dim. Imagine how we study.

Yumyumyum! There's wine in the mug. No wine glasses :(

After-dinner party playing card games and having fruits. We were at Saboteur in this one. Look at how the miners are winning! (I was a miner.)

...and had dinner at Debbie's house!

Remember the people we met at the Christian Students booth? Debbie and Grace are housemates and they live in this townhouse at...Columbia Court? somewhere near school anyway. the people who live there are all Christians and go the same church. Yvette and I got invited over for their weekly Thursday house dinner!

Apphia and Yvette! Apphia grew up in Singapore but her father's American so they came over. Good choice. Instead of getting stuck in ACJC.

Jasmine, Debbie, Grace. Jasmine's husband's a prof at UCI. They're from China.

Top: Grace, Debbie, Me, Jasmine.
Bottom: Apphia, Yvette, Johanna
The artwork on the wall behind is done by them, on Painting Night.

Me taking a photo of Debbie cos she didn't wanna join the photos.

There's Nancy! She was taking the group photo. She ran all the way around the table just to hug the rice cooker and be in the photo.

Carrots in ORANGE JUICE.

Casseroles, Singaporean Carrot cake, Kung Pao Chicken and Spring rolls for dinner.

Clearing up after.

Doing homework on the floor.

Their house is a nice place to live in, although I don't know how I would react to the bursts of loud laughter and giggling that seems to occur every 5 mins or so. Good times, good times.