morning in K'zoo

I just had lunch with my old boss from Western's library and a few Thai friends at an Indian restaurant here in Kalamazoo. Came down here for the departmental seminar, which will be presented by an ex-student of my undergraduate professor. She just graduated from her PhD degree and was invited here to give a talk about her work. We will also be having a small lab reunion after the seminar. So since I am going to be here for the whole day and I don't feel like doing the usual catching up, (as I'm sure it will involve more 'pat' stories) I decided to give my boss a visit.

He brought us to an Indian restaurant that opened a few months after I left Kalamazoo and the food is superb! I always think about how much I misses home cook food and typical Hokkien-style dishes but after lunch, I'm now missing Indian food! We had naan and kurma chicken, tandoori chicken, smashed spinach and chick peas. They were all really good but I can't help thinking that the food back in M'sia is so much better - roti canai..especially roti planta, nasi briyani, nasi kandar (which I think is more of a Malay food than Indian but in Penang, most of the operators of nasi kandar are usually Indian..i think), chapati, and the list goes on. Despite all these thoughts, the Indian food we had today is really good considering I haven't had any for such a long time. At least it's something different from burger and fries. Somehow, burger and fries are not as easily missed as Asian food.

Got here early this morning and had a chance to roam around a little before I went over to meet my ex-boss. I am amazed that now the Western's library - Waldo Library - allow beverages and food because they were really sensitive over it when I was working here 2 years ago. Unfortunately, their idea of 'allow' is to provide a space that is surrounded for you to eat and drink. Imagine a children's play area, where they have those metal poles hooked together with satin wrapped wire surrounding the area - this place is kinda like that but bigger, with no slides and swings but tables and chairs. I still prefer MSU's library where we have a small cafe within the library that not only sell dry food but sandwiches and lunch boxes. It feels that they trust us to eat and study at the same time or that we don't spill our food all over their books.

Overall, I am still impressed at the improvement that Western made to its library. oh yeah..they have all new computers too..no wonder the student's tuition fee goes up sky high everytime.