Happy Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year!

I celebrated lunar new year and my birthday with some of my friends. My adviser also came. She bought me several bags of nuts, as she knew that I love nuts.^_^. My housemates bought me a birthday cake. I also got flowers for my birthday.

I bought wraps. Two of my friends help me prepared three kinds of fillings: pork with leeks, shrimps with tofu, and vegitable and mushroom mixed. We made dumpling together. It was fun. We had a good time.

Pedestrian Safety Summit

I attended "Pedestrian Safety Summit" on Thursday at Southwest of Seattle. I have to say that I was disappointed. I nearly ran over by cars crossing the street to get to the "summit"! What a "Pedestrian Safety Summit"!

To get to the "summit", according to the Metro online planner, I have to take two buses, and transfer from downtown. It would take me one and half hours to get to where the "summit" was held. I woke up very early that morning to catch bus to downtown. After more than 1 hour and 40 minutes on the bus, I got off at a 2-lane street full of cars passing by me at very fast speeds. A lady who took the same bus also got off here. Based on the map I printed out from Google, I need to cross the street. The lady seemed like she wanted to cross the street too. However, I noticed there was no sidewalks, nor cross-walks. The lady and I were standing on the street, scared. She and I waited for about one minute, and found a time there was only one car coming. We seized that moment, and ran to the middle of the street. Almost at the same time, two cars were coming from the other direction, and we had to stop and wait the cars passing. Thankfully, we successfully crossed the street without getting killed. I felt like I was a survivor.

What a wonderful location "Pedestrian Safety Summit" chose!

On the way back to Seattle, I learned that I was not the only person who took the bus to the "summit". There were two other persons. One is the lady who was on the same bus as me. The other one was a young fellow. The reason I took the bus is that I don't own a car. The reason that the lady took the bus is that her health condition doesn't allow her to drive. And the reason the young fellow took the bus is that he is blind. He even had to take the bus to the terminal first, and then take the bus back, because there is no cross-walk, and he couldn't cross the street. At the end, three of us were picked up by David, a pedestrian advocate, back to downtown Seattle.

My new year’s wish: get a boyfriend

My new year’s wish is to get a boyfriend.

I’ll turn 27 on January 29 this year. I’m getting “old”. My mother started telling me I should start thinking about “my personal life” ever since I handed in my thesis in August 2004. One of my cousins, who is three years younger than me, and I’m very close with, sent me a new year card saying that what he and a lot of our relatives wish to see most is that I’ll have a boyfriend in 2006. One of my labmates, who is like my big brother, started to tell me I should find a boyfriend last December when he was upgraded to be a father.

I think I’m getting old. I should start thinking about “my personal life” as my mother said. I have some guy friends here in the states, but somehow they never attract to me. At least, they never express their interests. Wait, most of my guy friends are either married, or with long-term girlfriends.

As a person never has a boyfriend, I think I need to take a course or some sort of certificate program to learn how to get a boyfriend. So I asked tips from my guy friends and girl friends on how to get a boyfriend. One guy friend told me I should join different clubs/associations, like hiking, climbing, something like that to make new friends. Another guy friend told me I can go to café/tea shop to meet people. He also told me I should be confident, as guys like girls to have confidence. In 2006, I’ll go to café/tea shop more often then. As for different clubs/associations, I’ll look into that. All my girl friends, who have boyfriends, are very feminine. So I think I should be more feminine. I’ll wear feminine clothing, and some makeup more often.

My friends, more suggestions/advise are welcome.^_^.

Boxing Day Shopping in Vancouver

I went to Vancouver BC for the boxing day shopping! It was fun.

Boxing day is the day after Christmas, and is one of the biggest shopping days in Canada. Retail stores usually will have big sales. My friend and I started shopping from 9am, and we finished it at 7pm. It was like a full-time job. I bought a lot of stuff. Yet, not enough to claim visitor tax refund. I didn't spend enough money!

Leavenworth, WA

Leavenworth, WA is a quaint little Bavarian Village nestled in the central Cascade Mountains of Washington State. I went there with two of my friends on Dec. 20 and 21st.

We drove about 3 hours from Seattle. The weather was very cold. The road was quite icy.


















Leavenworth is known as a German town in Washington State, and there are quite a lot of German restaurants and stores. Of course, we had beers and German food.

The second day, we went cross-country skiing in the morning. I enjoyed skiing. I started to like skiing. I hope I can do more in the future.

Oyster Harvesting

I did oyster harvesting first time in my life! It was fun. I had yummy oysters. The weather was very cold. You can find some pictures @ http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/photos/2005/11_nov/03_oystering/

I joined a group of my friends last night to Twanoh State Park, Belfair, WA, which is about 2 hours east of Seattle to harvest oysters. Twanoh State Park, a saltwater beach with camping facilities, is a well-known place for oyster harvesting.

The tide was forcasted to be low last night: wonderful time for picking oysters. Even though the temperature was quite low, the weather was cooperating: clear sky. At least, we didn't need to stay in rain or snow under such low temperature with our shoes wet.

We set off from Seattle about 8:40pm. After one hour ferry, we got to Bremerton. Around 10 o'clock we got to Twanoh State Park. I have to mention the vehicle we used: a school bus. Yes, we took the school bus. No, we didn’t steal the bus. Brendan, a professor at my department, bought the school bus. A nice idea, isn’t it?

After we got ready, we started harvesting oysters. Boy, there are lots of oysters lying on the beach! I haven’t seen sooooo many oysters in my life. It was an oyster field. It seemed like they were waiting for us to pick them up. Of course, oysters don’t move. They live on the rocks, on each other, and with other shell fish. Picked up an oyster, I followed Phil’s instruction (the expert at harvesting oyster in the group) starting harvesting. The shell is hard. An oyster knife is highly recommended for harvesting oysters. The exciting moment was I first time opened an oyster at the oyster harvest field!

Man, it was cold! I wore my wool pants underneath my ski pants. For the top, I had down jacket, in addition to wool sweater. I also wore hat and gloves. I could still feel the cold after half an hour of harvesting.

After midnight, we harvested quite an amount of oysters. We decided to go to the camp ground and started cooking the oysters. Phil, as the activity organizer, also prepared all the cooking tools, equipment, source, and ingredients. Phil was a cook. He is very good at cooking. I heard the rumor that some women proposed to him because he can cook very yummy food.^_^. I think the rumor is true. Oysters in peanut butter soup were delicious. Deep fried oysters with Phil’s home-made source were phenomenal. Everything was paid off after we had the yummy oysters, good drinks, and happy conservations.

Compared the yummy oysters, and the good time we had, sleeping in the tent under cold freezing weather was just nothing. We got back to Seattle this afternoon around 2pm.

More pictures on ski

Ski

I went skiing today. It was on the way to the ski resort on Mt. Baker, which is about 2 and half hours north east of Seattle.

First Two Months being a Doctoral Student

It has been almost two months since I started my doctoral study. For sure, being a PhD student has higher expectations than being a master student. Hopefully I can keep up with the expectations.

2005 ACSP

From Oct.27-30, I attended the annual ACSP (The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning) conference. This year it was in the Kansas City, Missouri.

2005 ACSP--Kansas City

Look, there is a prisoner wants to escape!

This is Phil, a colleague of mine who went to ACSP conference together.^_^.

2005 ACSP--Kansas City

A historic building in the east side of Kansas City

Nice looking, isn’t it?

It was a jail in early 20th century.

Trail Work

On Oct.23rd, I went to trail work with two of my friends.

Look at Amenda and Daichike (please forgive me if I spell your name wrong), how hard working they are!

Trail Work

During the break of the trail work, I was standing in front of a waterfall.

Live Octopus!!!

Live Octopus!!! Still moving.......
In Seoul, I tried live octopus.

Eating Live Octopus!

Eating live octopus!!!
Look at me, I was eating live octopus!
I was so proud of it, until I scared away my "potential boyfriend" one day by telling him I ate live octopus.^_^.

The good thing is that I'm still proud of it, and the scared away person is not my potential boyfriend.^_^.

My mother

My father proudly stood in the alley where he lived more than 32 years ago when he first met my mother.

Yak and me on the river.^_^.

Yaks