Thanksgiving!!

My first Thanksgiving! = D

After 19 years of life on this Earth, I have finally experienced my first thanksgiving. This is because Thanksgiving is only celebrated in America. I have enjoyed it very much. Thank you all who have made it such an enjoyable experience.

Since the start of the week, I have been in holiday mode despite having two days of school left and a test to do. The festivities started off with my first thanksgiving dinner, the AACF potluck thanksgiving dinner on Monday evening. I had an awesome time with all the food and the turkey and the ham, and especially having fellowship with brothers and sisters. But the food was awesome too...ate a little bit too much. I am just thankful for all the brothers and sisters and all the friendships I have made in UCSB, for making my time here feel like a home away from home. After the dinner, a few of us went to watch "Inglourious Basterds" at the IV Theater. They had 3 previous screenings already but when we got there, there was a massive queue to get in. I guess this was because it was the last screening. Fortunately we made it in, but only just. The film was pretty good, it was a typical Quintin Tarintino film wit lots of violence in it.

I came back down to LA on Tuesday night. I am very grateful for my cousin, for driving all the way up to SB just to pick up so that I don't have to take AMTRAK or greyhound. Also for my aunt, for letting me stay with her. On Wednesday I met up with my two uncles, Alan and Calvin and two other cousins, Amy and Michelle. We had brunch at a congee place. It was so good tasting chinese food again....especially congee. Afterwards we went to play Badminton, which lasted for more than 4 hours. It was fun but tiring. Then we went for dinner at Coconut Bay.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day aka Turkey Day. I woke up early to go with my cousin to his Church's Turkey Bowl. This is where we get together to have fellowship with each other and to play sports (kickball, flag football, and ultimate frisbee) to work off some of the calories before putting them back on later in the day. After Turkey bowl, we returned home to find my uncle Alan already cooking the turkey. The smell was soooooo goood!!! Four hours later....my first official thanksgiving dinner! We had Turkey, Stuffing, Cajun Style Quail, Mushrooms, Salad and Sweet Yam topped with marshmallows. It was delicious.

On Friday we met up with my uncles again for yum cha because my cousins Amy and Michelle left their cameras at my aunts place and they were returning to Arizona that day. Afterwards we went to my Uncle Calvin's house to say bye to Uncle Alan, Amy and Michelle and to look at my Uncle Alan's dogs, Amaretto and Halluteen. They are a German Shepherd and Husky respectively. They were big dogs but also the most gentle dogs I have ever seen. My uncle took them in after an animal shelter had rescued them from abuse. After saying my farewell to my uncle and cousins, we went to Brea Mall to do some shopping. Since it was my first thanksgiving, I had decided that I wanted to experience what Black Friday Shopping was like....then I realised that if I wanted to experience the proper Black Friday sales, I would have to wake up and start queuing in the middle of the night. So I decided not to and just went in the afternoon. It was still extremely busy as Black Friday represents the start of the christmas sales season. Afterwards Lynnette, Garrett, Karissa and Jon picked me up at the mall and we went down to Irvine Spectrum to watch A Christmas Carol 3D at the Imax theatre. The 3D was awesome.

What I am thankful for:

• God for His Love, Mercy, and Grace; for His Son Jesus; for His provision and taking care of me through my ups and downs.
• Family
• Friends
• Everything!
  

Setting aside all the food and turkey, my thoughts on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving like most other major holidays have been heavily commercialised. Thanksgiving originated when the pilgrims crossed the Atlantic and settled in America, it was to Thank God for letting them survive a harsh winter and also for the harvest. Now its been made into just another holiday.
I think Thanksgiving is great. It's a time where were are thankful to God for his provision and providence. He gives and takes away, so we should be thankful. But instead of just being thankful on one day of the year, we should be thankful to Him every day of the year. For His Love and Mercy and Grace. For His Forgiveness, His Son Jesus and the Cross. We sould be thankful everyday that we are still alive and not dead. For everything He has provided and will provide for us. I think Thanksgiving is a great holiday and it should be celebrated as we should be Thankful to God. However I don't think that Thanksgiving should be the only a day where we give Thanks But also a reminder that we should give thanks to God every single day.

Rainy Days, Hot Days and Gun Scares

It has been a crazy week. We had rain, we had sun, a visit from my sister, a trip down to LA, and a gunman scare on campus.

Last Tuesday was the first time I saw rain in months. And it rained torrentially...it wasn't actually bad at all but the Californian drainage system just can't cope with rain. Most of the roads were flooded and how I so wished that i brought my wellies. Seeing rain triggered some mixed emotions, On the one hand I was kinda happy to see rain again after such a long time, on the other hand...wasn't one of the points of coming to California was to escape the British weather? Tuesday was also the day my sister came to visit....maybe she brought the British weather to California with her?

I also took my driving test on Wednesday as my sister took a car up here. I failed by one minor fault. = ( But the driving examiner does not know how to drive or Californians drive differently from the UK (not talking about driving on the other side of the road but on driving techniques). Apparently to pass the driving test in California you should be using the hand cross-over technique for steering, accelerate when your approaching traffic lights, only look backwards and not look around for dangers when reversing, and also drive as close as possible to a parked car on the road as possible instead of keeping a safe distance. In the UK, if you do any of these things on the test it would be an automatic fail but apparently in California you would pass the test. = S

On friday, I went down to LA with my sister for the weekend as my sister was leaving on Saturday and it's my cousin's birthday this week. After class, we drove down, taking multiple stops along the way. We stopped at the Camarillo Shopping Outlets and at The Grove. All in all it took us 8 hours to do an 160 mile journey due to the stops and the very irritating LA traffic jams.

Today there was a gunman scare on campus in the afternoon. I didn't find out about the gunman until I got to my afternoon class. We were waiting for the TA, who was teachng the class for about 10 minutes and he still hadn't turned up. Then someone checked their emails where there was an email from the TA that he was stuck in North Hall and the class was cancelled. And then a friend texted me that there was a gunman in South Hall and to stay away. Despite the warning I decided to cycle around South Hall as it was adjacent to the building I was supposed to have my class in. South Hall was surrounded by CSOs and police officers guarding all the entrances. It was quite a surreal scene as campus was eerily empty as i guessed that received the warning email before they left home while I only received it after I got home. I later found out that the "gunman scare" was that there were reports of a man allegedly with a gun on a top balcony of South Hall shouting at students and threatening suicide and that the intial investigation has indeicated that there was no actual threat.

Crazy days

Orientation was a fun time of meeting lots and lots of people. It's one of those occasions where you meet so many people that the next time you meet the same person, you can only recognise them but you can't remember there names. It was great meeting new people. The other side of orientation were the talks they give you. They are some of the most boring talks that you can ever here. The only consolation was that they had a raffle prize draw at the beggining of each talk for a bike. I didn't win it though unfortuantely so it was bit of a waste of time.

As I didn't have a place to stay for the weekend because my apartment move-in date wasn't til the monday, I went back down to Orange County. Also it was Lynnette's Birthday over the weekend. We went to Maxim's Cafe in Rowland Heights with Lynnette and her family. It was nice going back there with the massive portions of food! = P I was especially surprised by their souffle. I wasn't expecting to order a souffle in a chinese restaurant let alone being very tasty and massive. But then again, they served portions of chips as well. We then went to a Boba (Bubble Tea) place for boba despite already being extremely full from Maxim's. I was craving for it though ever since I got to California. Afterwards we went to Lynnette's place and we watched a Thai movie called "Chocolate". It's a Thai martial arts film. It's about an autistic girl who learns muy thai and all sorts of martial arts by watching tv and living next to a muy thai school. She then goes on a rampage of beating up her mother's debtor's, as her mother used to be an ex-gangster, in order to get money to treat her mother's cancer.

On sunday, I went to church with Lynnette. It was my second time there. The church is quite small and it has a family like feel. Everyone knows each other and they are very friendly. Before the worship service, we had Sunday School. Every Sunday, they would have Sunday School for all ages. It was quite different from CCiL and other churches I have been to. It was like back to when I was a kid where there was one person at the front who did all the teaching. While other churches, it was more discussion based. After the worship service, we had a mini party for Lynnette. It was good meeting people and it was quite amusing watching them trying to "echo" my accent.

After the party, I was "absorbed" into the Woo family without really being given a choice for another family celebratory dinner. This time we were joined by Lynnette's cousin - Karissa and Tiffanie. But first we went back to Lynnette's house to watch Ponyo - I fell asleep about halfway through it- not that it wasn't good it was just that I was too tired, but its about a magical fish who falls in love with a boy on land and she wants to become human but her father disapproves. It's kinda like a Japanese version of The Little Mermaid. What followed was kinda a crazy night. It involved going out for dinner at a bakery kinda place in Yes Plaza - the food was pretty nice and we had tapioca drinks for desert, flicking a paper dumpling at each other to see which family's blocking method is the best, Lynnette, Karissa and Tiffanie hijacking my camera (The pics and vids on facebook are pretty self explanatory) and watching clips of insanely high pitched but incredible male singers on youtube.

UC Santa Barbara

Today I went up to UC Santa Barbara in order to get ready for orientation tomorrow. My Uncle took the day off to drive me up here.

The journey took around 3 1/2 hours due to heavy traffic going into downtown LA. Gosh!!!...they have to sort out the traffic here - maybe a congestion charge would do or maybe not. It was an interesting site driving around LA, on the one hand you had the beautiful blue skies and the sun shining down on you and on the other, you had an extremely thick layer of smog just sitting on the horizon. After my uncle drove through much of the LA traffic and exactly halfway to Santa Barbara, we decided we were hungry and stopped at Jack in the Box in Thousand Oaks. It was my first time at Jack in the Box and I actually found the food ok...I ahd their chicken, cheese and bacon burger. For the remainder of the journey, my uncle decided that I would drive the other half of the Journey to Santa Barbara. It was a really good drive with mesmerising views...After passing through some very steep hills, you are suddenly hit by Oxnard, CA...and then by beautiful beaches and the glittering ocean on one side and mountains on the other. It was a shame I couldn't take pics as I was driving.

I met my first roundabout in the states today at UCSB, which was exciting. there's an astonishing amount of roundabouts on campus for the USA....especially for bikes. The campus itself is pretty big and very nice with the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. It seemed very empty today as people were not back to class yet. After settling into my temporary accomadation, we went for a self guided campus tour. It was like a normal university that you would find in the States...lots of buildings - apart from the fact that there's a lagoon there, it's right by the sea and two beaches next to it. We also explored a small part of Isla Vista, mainly looking at where the shops are and at Del Playa. Del Playa Drive is the main party street...apparently its manic and chaos down there on most weekends and especially Halloween.

The Lagoon

Me at the Beach with Del Playa overlooking it.

The Beach

Storke Tower

Giant Robots, Mahi Mahi & 85 degrees

Lynnette decided to take me into LA for the day. There were several places we gonna go to....Ginat Robots store, an art exhibition by Mike Shinoda at the Japanese American National Museum, Farmer's Market, The Grove etc. However LA traffic limited us to going only to the first destination I had decided to go to....the Giant Robots Store. The Giant Robots store is a small shop heavily influenced by Asian American Pop culture, somewhere in West LA according to Lynnette. The store was a lot smaller (about the size of a corner shop) than I had originally expected as I was told that the store contained a restaurant/cafe as well (The restaurant cafe was loacted across the street). It sold some t-shirts, manga, comics,, art books and other random books. Lynnette and I were transfixed by a book about "Unuseless inventions from Japan". It contained some of most random inventions which included an inverted umbrella that collects water to save on water bills, umbrellas for shoes and a leg powered washing machine powered by walking.

For Lunch, we went to the Giant Robot's restaurant called GR/eat. It was a really small restaurant with a simple but stylish-ish decor. I ordered the Mahi Mahi with Misoyaki sauce while Lynnette ordered the vegetarian omelette rice. The Mahi Mahi is a popular fish eaten in Hawaii. The Mahi Mahi was served with rice and some vegetables. Meanwhile the omlette rice consisted of a vegetarian fried rice stir fried with a sweet and spicy sauce with an omelette on top of it all. Both dishes were delicious!
The Omelette Rice

The Mahi Mahi
Lynnette had a meeting at K-town after lunch so we couldnt go anywhere else. I was dropped off at The Coffee Bean, all by myself in an unfamiliar area only with a mocha frappaccino and a copy of the LA Times to keep me company.

K-Town
After the meeting, it was off to 85 degrees in Irvine to meet Aryn. However we ended up at BIOLA instead, due to traffic on the freeway. Lynnette showed me around the campus. It is a very small but cosy campus. We joined Aryn outside her dorms for a BBQ...even though I didn't eat anything.
BBQ

We then headed off to 85 degrees after picking up Garrett for pre-dinner. we were met by Lynnette nad Garrett's parents at 85 degrees. 85 degrees is a taiwanese bakery in Irvine which is always extremely busy...apart from when we got there. It was immediately busy after we brought out milk pudding buns. Later we were met there by Aryn and Steven.

Despite already being a bit full, we originally decided to go to dinner at Popeye's, which served fried chicken. But we couldn't find the exit on the freeway so we went to The Hat instead. The Hat serves big portions of pastrami sandwiches and fries with chilli dips and cheese dips which we would mix to make chilli and cheese dip. It was quite filling. We were joined by Ariel, who had made Mochis. I don't really know what mochis are but they were delicious!

Happy Birthday

Today is my Uncle's Birthday...so Happy Birthday to him! = D

Today was a far more relaxing day than yesterday as I had pretty much done most of what I had to do yesterday. The first half of the day was spent at home online catching up with people located in various places around the world...mainly London and Beijing.

For Lunch, we went to In-n-Out, which was awesome!!! = P I love In-n-Out....their burgers are some of the best I've had! It was great being there again. I have never been so excited about a fast food burger chain before....so sad I know!

After going to Wal-Mart to buy some essential, we went to pick up my cousin from school. What surprised me was how much extra-curricular they had on at the same time and how busy they were. They had the NJROTC (Navy Cadets), Baseball, and Cross Country going on and that was only what I could see from the car park. The NJROTC were very good at drill...a lot better than we were when I was in the CCF.

To celebrate my uncle's birthday, we went to Coconut Bay for dinner. The majority of the customers there were young people...around my age, which was a good sign. It's a thai bar & grill restaurant. The food was pretty nice and cheap. The portions were decent size...not too big and not small at all...Just about right.

All in a Day (Tuesday 8th September)

Today was a busy day. I had to sort out a lot of stuff in as little time as possible. Still being jetlagged I woke up quite early in the morning and slept very early as well.

Today I went to Bank of America to sort out my bank accounts. The customer service there was so good. As we walked in, we were immediately greeted by a lady who asked if we needed her assistance and within a minute I was sitting at a desk being served by a personal banker and opening my bank account. Unlike in London at barclays where I had to wait 30 minutes just to get to see the personal banker and in the end wasn't even able to open an account. Anyways I found it quite funny, sad and cool that in America you can choose what background you want on your card and cheques. It took me extremely long time to choose mine, eventually I chose my one to have an aircraft carrier at sea, a fighter jet taking off and a helicopter! Very manly I know! I was tempted to get the Hello Kitty one just for jokes, but I knew I would regret it later.

We went to a vietnamese restaurant for lunch. I had been craving for Vietnamese for a while...especially for their spring rolls which is wrapped in rice paper instead of being deep fried - the deep fried ones are called egg rolls. It was very very nice, especially the dipping sauce.

Then we went to the DMV to sort out my licence. Had to wait in a queue for 20 minutes just to get a ticket to wait inside. American people are so friendly over here. People just started long conversations with strangers in the queue, if you tried doing that in London....it would never happen. But anyways it took nearly 2 hours to get my driver's permit (provisional licence) and I ahd to do a written test just to get it. I didnt revise for the test so I was surprised that I got 34/36 and passed. The two I got wrong...one was about not being allowed to smoke in a car with a child in it and the other was something I've never heard of before.

After having gone to the DMV, we decided to go play some golf at the driving range. My uncle is a golf maniac and I was shocking at golf. I would hit a few good balls but my technique is nowhere as good as him. I'm good at Wii golf though! = D

Labor Day (Monday 7th September)

Today was Labor Day, so nobody had work or school today. This meant I could hang out with my family. = )

I'm still pretty jetlagged, having had no sleep for the past 24 hrs and playing extreme Wii, I only managed to get 6 hours sleep....waking up at 6am in the morning.

My aunt and her family decided to come over to my Uncle's house. After playing some more Wii for a little while we decided that we were hungry and wanted to get something to eat. My Cousin Aubrey decided to go to the Boiling Crab. It sounded quite a nice place to go and I've never been before as well. So off we went to the Boiling Crab. When we got there, we found out that it does not open til 3pm on weekdays. I thought 3pm was a very strange time to open as it was neither lunch time nor dinner time. But what can I do about that. We went Yum Cha instead. The dim sum was decent but it didnt have the variety that you would get in London or HK.

After lunch, we went to Brea Mall where we walked around to digest the food we just had. We spent a lot of time in Brookstone where there were lots of massage chairs to try. Then we went to have some more food in the form of coldstone ice cream. = P Aubrey had invented a new and weird flavour and wanted me to try it. It involved the mixing of vanilla bean ice cream and mint ice cream followed by a crushing of kitkats. The guy serving us looked at us weirdly as we ordered it however it was actually surprisingly tasty.

After Brea Mall, we went back to my uncle's house for some more Wii playing! Afterwards we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant for dinner. They had so many different types of sushi which you wouldn't find in a conventional Japanese restaurant in London. They were all weird and wonderful creations. Even though they were on the pricier side, they were delicious and i think they were worth it. Afterwards we went back to my uncle's house for some more Wii! Then we went for a swim in my uncle's pool (communal pool shared between the neighbors) and in the jacuzzi. It was nice being able to look up into the night sky and seeing lots of stars around. Afterwards we played some more Wii. I'm starting to think that I've been playing a lot of Wii recently. = )

Day One (Sunday 6th September)

I've decided to start blogging about my time in California in order to keep everyone posted.

Day One:
The flight landed at LAX at around 2.30pm. And I managed to get out of the airport by 3.10pm considering the flight was completely full and its LAX. The flight was pretty uneventful, although we had a very funny Chief air steward who would crack a lot of jokes on the PA system. I also managed to watch all the summer films that I didn't get to watch in England...Fast and Furious, X-Men Origins, Star Trek and Monsters Vs Aliens! = P

I was met by my cousin and Uncle, Aubrey and Calvin, at the airport and the first thing I had was a mocha frappaccino. = ) I am still not used to US dollars right now, still in Pound sterling mode >_<....the mocha frappaccino was like $4.50 or something and I was thinking that that was really expensive as in my mind I was thinking £4.50, hmm its very expensive! But $4.50 is only like £2.80...so it is still expensive, around the same as London.

One thing I noticed as we got out of the airport and onto the freeway was the lack of cars. Usually there would be heaps of cars around and traffic jams but it was empty this time. Then I remembered it was a Sunday and it was Labor Day weekend....so it was a Bank Holiday weekend.

I am currently staying at my Uncle's house. It's pretty nice. We went to my other aunt's house for dinner. There was so much food and it was delicious! = P We played a lot of Wii because my cousin Derrick brought the new Wii sports resort! It's really fun but tiring. I was so tired at the end of it considering I hadn't slept for the past 24 hrs and California is 8 hours behind London so I was a bit jetlagged.