Los Alamos, New Mexico

最近很忙, 有好多experiment 要做. But it is pretty exciting time! I am sooo glad that I took over this project. In the past 8 months since my last committee meeting, I have way more useful data than all the experiments combined from the 2nd and 3rd year. 但有時候,若是有空,還是比較喜歡弄scrapbooking. :P 沒想到, 這短短的半年裡, 我的生活突然有那麼多的故事了.

Alright, here comes the Los Alamos trip...

Albuquerque airport is about 2 hours away from Los Alamos, which is where Steph is working at right now. She picked me up from the airport and we went over to Santa Fe, which is the capitol of New Mexico, for a late lunch. Unlike Michigan, the 1.5 hours ride from East Lansing to Detroit airport, while dull, is occasionally greeted with various towns and signs of life. The approximately 45 minutes drive to Santa Fe is surrounded by mountains and flatlands with very little flora. It sure is very brown.

It does get more interesting once we get to Santa Fe. The buildings are very unique, having flat roofs and are mostly made of concrete (as opposed to the more common wooden houses in Michigan). But I still think that their color choice of 'earth tone' is still too boring, as much as I love nature. We had a traditional Mexican lunch at Maria's. I had a platter of Blue Corn Enchilada that comes with Spanish rice and refried beans. They serve the meal with some kind of puffy bread that you eat with honey known as Sopaipillas.

After lunch, Steph brought me to the Santa Fe Plaza. It is a touristy area with shops selling various types of art, specifically, locally made New Mexico style art.

While it was interesting to see the arts of New Mexico, it is definitely not my kind of thing as the jewelleries are very bold (those that is very 'cha bak') and the decor art are too weird looking and as Steph also mentioned, you wouldn't know what to do with them. Like this piggy here...

One thing that you see everywhere is this Ristra. It is a bunch of dried chilli that they keep around for later consumption. Isn't that convenient?

Within the plaza area is also a chapel, the Loretto Chapel, that has a unique staircase. This staircase was built by a mysterious carpenter that disappeared after he completed it. Until today, it is still a puzzle how the staircase was built as it has no support and uses no nails. I think because this is such a precious architecture, they charge people to enter the chapel, which I was surprised when we first walked in to the chapel.

We arrived at Los Alamos when it was pretty dark out so I didn't get to see much until the next day. Steph has a very nice apartment with tall ceiling and has lots of windows for the sunlight to enter. The next day, we went hiking at Bandelier National Monument. It is a national park with ruins left over from the Pueblo era. The Pueblos are Native Americans who lived in the soutwest region of the States. I wonder how many people in the States today is still a Pueblo descendant.

The view of the park from one of the mesa.

We hiked through the Main Loop Trail, which goes through the archaeological sites. These walls made up the Tyuonyi, where some of the Pueblo people used to live in. Can you imagine living in such tiny spaces? I think I would be claustrophobic!

Some of them live up in the rocks that looks like Swiss cheese. These rocks are made of volcanic ash that got compacted over time. They make rooms out of those holes within the rock and strengthen their rooms by smoking the ceilings.

Some live even higher up, like this Alcove House. We have to climb 4 tall wooden ladders to get up to the top. Can you imagine carrying a bunch of wood and food they gather up these ladders?

The park maintains the archaelogical sites pretty well as you can still see some remains of the petroglyph that the Pueblo people used to make.

After we finished walking the Main Loop, we hike through the Falls Trail. The trail ends at the Rio Grande, where part of it forms the US-Mexico border. We didn't walk that far and the river didn't look very appealing either.

Similar to the chaparral in Arizona, Bandelier also has very little signs of life. In fact, at the time when I was there, it felt even more serene as the trees barely look alive and we only bumped into one squirrel which I call it the bunny-squirrel because it has long ears like rabbits.

We did walk past a waterfall that runs into a stream leading into the Rio Grande. This made me realized that as much as I love being out in the nature and hiking through national parks, having a waterfall or lake or some kind of pristine water body makes it much more interesting. It reminds me our home back in Penang. Although it is smack right in the middle of a tourist area, it is only within minutes away from the beach, the waterfall, the national forest, and mountains and parks. Mummy and daddy, thanks for such a wonderful place for me to go back to whenever I need a break!

The view of Los Alamos with the Rocky Mountains in the background. See the snow-capped mountain? That is the first time I have seen one!! (Reminded me of the hymn "His Love Lit Image" we used to sing in Sunday school). They must have gotten quite a lot of snow already as Steph pointed out a few mountain tops with enough snow for skiing. Isn't it amazing that just within a small geographical area, Steph and I was standing by some rocks with only a sweatshirt and when we look up, we see snow and there could be people up there in their winter coat, skiing!

Besides getting to hang out with Steph, the other highlight of my trip is - the blue skies!!! Steph said that it is actually cloudier than normal but coming from the rainy, gloomy Michigan for the past several weeks, it is actually refreshing!!

The trip ended with a yummy Italian dinner home-cooked by Steph before I have to leave for Michigan the next morning.

There may not be much to do in Los Alamos but I was glad to see Steph and catch up with her again. It is great to have friends that even after two years of not seeing each other, we are still bffs! It is even more special because Steph was the first person I met coming here to MSU. Lost and not knowing how to approach a professor, I bumped into Steph on the hallway of the BPS 6th floor. She offered her email address and I thought that she is the nicest person ever! Later, being in the same lab as her, I am glad I get to meet her before she graduated because she IS the nicest person, sweetest friend (she remembered my favorite Swiss Roll!) and the greatest mentor ever! (I love you Steph!) Really wish that one day, we (along with Kristi, Kristin and Jen) could all have a reunion somewhere. I might get to see Steph again next year at Seattle but will have to see what the 老闆 says about the abstract first.

Arizona State University

Walking around the campus of Arizona State University made me realize one thing - MSU's campus will always be my favorite campus. We have the prettiest landscapes and gardens with lots and lots of colorful plants. The few campuses that I have been to in the US (besides ASU and MSU) are Stanford University in California, Boston University, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, Western Michigan University, University of Michigan, Central Michigan University and Wayne State University in Michigan, and University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign in Illinois. They each have their specialty but MSU is still my favorite in terms of the look of the campus.

ASU is much smaller than MSU and the buildings are much closer to each other. In fact, it actually feels like SS15 without the crazy number of cars. Just right across the road from the campus are a variety of shops from restaurants and bars to clothing stores. While ASU have less greeneries (maybe because it is located at a desert area), its buildings have more interesting architecture. The two major plants (besides cactus) that are widely spread at ASU campus is the bitter/sour orange (Citrus aurantium, hmm, I wonder if there is any link between this orange tree and the bacteria Spirochaeta aurantia) tree

and this bright colored flowers that seem to clusters in pairs.

The nice thing about the ASU campus is it is very friendly to people who like to walk and there are lots of stuff to see within walking distance, unlike at East Lansing, where there is not much going on within walking distance. A nice place that I really like is the Tempe Beach Park, especially at night. It reminds me of Esplanade, Penang. From the park, you can see the Mill Avenue bridges that cross the Tempe Lake and the Valley Metro Light Rail bridge. The Metro Light Rail is similar to our Putra LRT. It connects ASU all the way to Phoenix downtown. The colored bridge below is the bridge for the Light Rail. The color changes every day and it is cool when the train comes because the colored lights will chase after the train.

At the north edge of the campus is a mountain with a huge A on it. It is like The Rock at MSU although they don't mess it up as much and it is not as high in demand like the Rock. From this mountain, you can see both sunset and sunrise and I saw both on it too!!

As for the shops around campus, there are tons of different restaurants serving food of different culture (hehe, except Malaysian! This will always be the one factor that makes Malaysia special because there is no other country that have mamak!). Besides the regular chain restaurants that you can find anywhere in the US, they also have chains that are more specific to the southwest region like Jack in the Box and non-chain local restaurants. We went to a Mexican restaurant the first night I was there and P.F. Chang's on my last night there. 和John出去吃飯很輕鬆因為我們不會常常去吃那些典型美國菜.他對別文明美食還蠻有興趣的. 有幾次我不太敢約他和我們一起出去吃飯因為不懂他會不會喜歡我們吃的食物.但,我們有一次辦BBQ的時候, 我約他去, 他好多食物都嚐試.這次, 我們去P.F. Chang's 的時候, 我看到有烤鴨,好興奮喔!好久沒吃烤鴨了.我問他,他會不會吃鴨, 他竟然說他嚐過!太好了! Hehe. So we end up ordering our favorite Chicken Lettuce Wrap, VIP Duck (which is basically the same concept as Beijing Roast Duck but they serve it with tortilla wraps instead of the puffy buns) and a salmon dish (是的, 他也很喜歡吃魚!所以我們出去時, 我常常有得吃魚!). They have one of the best fish dishes because they add enough spices to make it tasty and still taste the fish and don't cook it too long that the fish becomes dry.

On my last day there, we walked through their 'Union', which is known as the Memorial Union. They have tons of stuff to eat there!!! They even have a Cold Stone Creamery right in there (in addition to one that is just right off campus!). Since we already got our dose of Cold Stone ice-cream the day before, we went to Einstein Bros. Bagels for breakfast. They have a really yummy bagel called the green pepper bagel.

There are definitely still more stuff to explore there ...hehe, if I get to make another trip there. :P

We beat Gonzaga!!

Argh, I am still so hyper from the game!! This is definitely the first exciting game of the season! It is also our first test since the previous games were all against not so 'geng' schools. Hehe.

Pei, why must the time difference between us be so much different!!! I am so hyper I need to talk to someone!! You are like the only person I know who is as gila over basketball as me. OMG, Morgan fell and held his ankle sometime during the first half. I thought he was going to hurt himself again!! The entire stadium was soo supportive as everyone chanted his name. He did went out but came back shortly before the first half ended. About 2 minutes or so before the end of the game, he got fouled out but he managed to score 16 points for us. Definitely better than the last game when he got 0-0 from the line. He started out pretty bad but improved a lot within this game! Go Morgan!!

Chris Allen didn't do as well this game and neither did Roe. In fact, Roe scored 0 and got fouled out! Allen had tons of opportunity to do a 3 point but he hesitated in all of them except one, ending with a total of 5 points. So disappointing! This game is pretty much Morgan, Summers and Lucas' game as they gave a total of 66 points out of the 75-71 win over Gonzaga.

The first half was so disappointing as we never came close to leading at all except for the first 2 points. Once Gonzago scored, they just kept going. Thankfully, the second half was much better for us. There were a lot of ties and leading by 2-3 points. It makes the game so much more 刺激!

Pei, this video is for you just incase you miss the MSU band. :P

十一月五號

今天是一個很特別的日子. 這一天我發現了三件事...

1. 我終於和我自己承認了. 我們一開始做"let's see how this semester go" 的約定已經不夠. Pei, 你說的一切, 我這一天才敢想起.

2. 這一切比做夢更美. 我一直想,什麼時候會恍然醒悟. 今天我發現,這個美麗的夢是現實,而且,更棒!

3. 我曾經以為西方男生不比我們華人會疼女孩 (Haha, maybe that is why there is no good way to express 'manja' in English). 我錯了. 雖然他比我小幾年, 他仍然會給那被照顧, 被manja的感覺.

雖然發現了這些,有點可怕,但覺得這一切都是值得去體驗. 愛. 若是正直和單純,那才是真的. 不需要搞到複雜,因為間單才會帶來開心和幸福.

周杰倫 - 間單愛

我想就這樣牽著你的手不放開,

愛可不可以間間單單沒有傷害,

你, 靠著我的肩膀,

你, 在我胸口水餃,

像這樣的生活我愛你, 你愛我.

I'm on top of the world! This picture was taken by John when we were up on one of the mountains by Apache Trail.

Arizona!

This is the best trip I have made in the past 2 years! (The last best one is of course, going home to Penang!) It may be a short one but definitely had a wonderful time there. We did a lot in the two days that I was there.

I arrived Phoenix in the mid-afternoon and my first impression - this feels like Malaysia! Every time I go on a plane ride, part of me always wish that its final destination is Penang International Airport. The first wave of heat as I walked out of the airport sure made it feel like I was transported back to M'sia for a moment. But of course, that will have to wait until sometime next year.

Later in the afternoon, as we were walking around Arizona State University campus, the glimpse of a little area here and there reminds me of Sunway. There is the nice houses and apartments, and then within a few blocks, you get the run down looking apartments or abandoned houses with a lawn that needs lots of mowing (already thinking about those houses almost covered with lalang). As you walk towards the main road, you get busy traffic and lots of shops, just like walking from our house towards Sunway Metro or the Mentari Business Park. Of course, they don't have a mall as big as Sunway Pyramid but the similarities are enough to bring a nostalgic feeling. Hehe, I must have said it like a thousand times to John as we walked around and when he was driving around the area. There are some area that has more well-to-do residents with luxurious looking houses, like those at the new Sunway area (can't remember what it is called edi). Reminds me so much of those days when I walked to Sunway College or the occasional walk home from SMKBS after a prefect's meeting.

The first place we explored was the Camelback Mountain. It is about 20 minutes away from John's place by car. We did not plan to watch sunrise at all but wanted to get an early start. We got there shortly before sunrise and got to watch it rises while we were hiking up the mountain. Although I have seen quite a few sunrise scene now, 這個讓我最感動的!! 感動到眼淚都掉下來了. Maybe because it was like a surprise present, 加上和喜歡的人手牽手看著日出, 真幸福!!

According to Wikipedia, it is designated as one of the 33 Phoenix Points of Pride! (There are so many things to do there!!) The reason why it is called the Camelback is because it has the shape of a camel's back. I know I saw it but for some reason, I must have not taken a photo at that time, or it was a crappy photo that got deleted before it got to my computer because I don't have a photo of it now. Boo! Hehe, that means we will have to go again. :P There is two trails that goes up all the way to the top. We took the Summit Trail. Although the trail is rated as "strenuous and difficult", we were totally fine. There is one challenging part where the rocks are slippery and it is very steep. But they installed a pole for you to hang on to so it wasn't bad at all. Other than that, it is lots of fun skipping from rocks to rocks. Hehe. It was a good thing we went early too because it got busier on our way down.

We even get to see the moon when we up at the peak of the mountain!

The city of Scottsdale from the mountain peak. We are looking at two golf course, which I thought is really cute because they look like those plots from Sim City.

From A New Beginning...

After the hike (which was only 11am! Going out with John is always much more productive because I don't have to wait until "jit tau tuk ka chui" to start the day), we drove down there for a yummy, fruity snack at Jamba Juice and later, lunch at Bamboo Club. It is voted Best Asian Restaurant in the Phoenix area and I was told that they have Malaysian dishes. Hmmm...clearly, our definition of Malaysian dishes is different. Hehe. They have the acar, satay and char keuh teow, all of which I did not order (err...who eats these stuff at a classy restaurant??? Hehe. It has to be keh lor pi ones that will taste better). I got "sizzling spicy tofu" instead. Haha, nope, it does not come in a sizzling hot plate (hmmm...sizzling hot plate noodle at Long Beach...yummy!) but it was delicious. Just spicy enough for a tofu dish and not too much gravy to make the tofu too soft. John got yummy Pad Thai but it has its own unique taste rather than the sweet, nutty traditional Pad Thai.

The other place we explored was the Tonto National Forest. This is a huge national park with lots of mountains and lakes, similar to the Rocky Mountains. It is interesting to see the stark difference in the ecology of the mountains in Arizona compared to the mountains in Colorado. The plant community in Tonto National Forest is less dense and are dominated by shrubs and cactus. There are also less animals that come into view, and if there are any, they are mostly birds. It has the ecology of chaparral rather than a forest (although it is called a national forest, maybe it does have forest ecology elsewhere that we did not come by since we only explored a small area).

We went into the park through the Apache Trail and one of the lakes that we came across is the Canyon Lake.

From A New Beginning...

A different view of Canyon Lake. The fun part of hiking here is that you feel like you are in complete wilderness. There is no pre-paved trails and there are less people around. In fact, we didn't bump into anyone while hiking at all! You can hike any way you want!

We also stopped by at a little town called Tortilla Flat. It is only a row of shops selling souvenirs and food. But surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, it is an official town with a population of 6! Isn't that cute?

On the way back to Tempe, we stopped by Goldfield Ghost Town. It used to be a gold mine but eventually became a ghost town when the gold runs out. Now, it is a tourist attraction with an underground mine tour!

Notice all the blue skies in the photos? It is addictive. Hehe. Can totally see why John likes it there so much. Unlike large busy cities that consumes precious Mother Nature, Tempe/Phoenix is large enough with lots of things to do but sparse enough that there are lots of mountains and other gifts of Mother Nature to explore.

It's Basketball Season!!

This past weekend is the first game of the basketball season. It is just an exhibition game but it was fun to watch the guys play on court again! We are picked as the nation's #2 team by the pre-season coaches' poll. Everyone is excited that our team is looking good and we still have our key players along with two awesome freshman...but....read on.

I was already excited about the basketball season starting from the Midnight Madness held back in October. The basketball players are only allowed to officially practice with the coach approximately a month or so before the season officially begins. Midnight Madness is to celebrate the day the official practice begins for the Spartans. Similar to last year, they have a skit, performance by the MSU Dance Team and Cheerleading Team followed by a short scrimmage starting at midnight. This year, Coach Izzo went as an Indy car racer. Ever since we went to the Final Four, they have yet to put up the banner for it so they did it this year. In fact, they made new banners for all the Final Fours that we went under Coach Izzo. This year's Midnight Madness also broke record as they had a full attendance at Breslin Center. Fans who went in late were turned away because they had reached full capacity. Isn't it crazy? Well, we are the nation's #2 team!!

After the Midnight Madness, there was another basketball event - Green vs White Scrimmage. It was held on the same day our football team played against Iowa. This was when I got an autograph from Coach Izzo and had Chris Allen to sign on the basketball jersey that Pei bought for me!!!

This year, the Izzones (the student section) organized a really nice tour of the men's basketball locker room and open practice. It is interesting to see how Coach Izzo have each of them work on different aspects of the game and after watching a full court practice, I think that these guys are awesome! Wonder how NBA practice is like..hehe.

Trophies at the lounge area by the main entrance of the basketball office.

At the office area, they have action shots of the basketball players all along the walls. Here is a wall with all the Spartans in NBA. Suton is the most recent one who was drafted to NBA for Utah Jazz but end up not being selected to play. In the recent Lakers vs Mavericks game, a Spartan alumni, Shannon Brown did an awesome dunk right as the shot clock goes off. 很美的灌籃!!

Then there is the wall with this season's players.

Their lecture room.

The practice court with all the banners from when the Spartans participated in the Final Fours, with the most recent one last season in Detroit. We will make it to Indianapolis this season!

Here comes the one everyone would love to see....their super chun locker room!

with comfy chairs in front of a large wall mount HD TV!

Our awesome players practicing hard.

And we get to pick up our Izzone T-shirt.

Finally, a recap of Sunday's game.

It is a good thing that exhibition games don't count because we have 2 key players injured and coincidentally, it is Pei and my favorite player! #2 Raymar Morgan and #3 Chris Allen! The game started out pretty slow. We scored a 4 point in the first 2 minutes and then the game went without any score for the next 5 minutes or so. While we won Northwood easily, the scores were pretty close during the first half. We lost another key player, #10 Delvon Roe early in the game due to some injury.

While we didn't play very well, I felt that Northwood was pretty rough out there on the court. Our players were on the floor half of the time! They seem to enjoy jumping out and bumping into anyone who tries to shoot from below the hoop. Geezz!! Our point guard, #1 Kalin Lucas certainly did not have a good day as he kept missing his shots but did managed to be the top 2nd scorer, just 1 score less than Summers. Our shooting guard, #15 Durrell Summers gave an awesome play today, making several awesome dunk. Unfortunately, with a few minutes more to go, he fell and had to leave the court. He was limping as he walks out. I hope it is not too bad because we already have Morgan and Allen down. Everyone is looking forward to see the entire basketball team healthy and yet, injuries happened before the first game. Poor Morgan, he needs some health potion or "unlimited mana". Hehe.

One surprise from this exhibition game - our new freshman center, #50 Derrick Nix can shoot! He scored us 13 points tonight! I like the shot below - Lucas (#1) and Nix (#50) both with the same points at one point of the game. :P Hopefully that all the guys will be back healthy when we play against Florida Gulf Coast.

I just love basketball season!! Pei, 我好想念妳喔!! 沒有你在, 我要跟誰談籃球呢?

Happy Halloween

This year's Halloween is a little boring since no one is around. But even if there is plans, I probably won't be able to participate since I am wrapping an experiment today - because I'm going down South on Tuesday!!! Actually, Southwest to be exact! It will be an interesting trip since the weather is so extreme. Haha, in fact, when compared to Michigan, the weather here is right in between the warm, SUNNY Phoenix and freezing cold, SUNNY Los Alamos. Yup, that is the key - the Sun! Steph also said that it has been snowing in Los Alamos. That will be fun too!!

Even though it is a quiet Halloween for me, I did managed to carve 2 little pumpkins a few weeks back. This is the first one. Hehe, I accidentally destroyed its nose!

Here is pumpkin #2 that ah boy and me decided to call it "Ah Bot". See who can guess where this name comes from...hint: if you don't know, then your English is not 'Hokkienized' enough. :P

I was trying to make it smoke a pipe but it failed. So I had to think of something else, but I didn't realize that I carved the pipe so close to the ear until I lighted it up!! Whoopss. :P

Last week, when I drove over to tai lo's house to have 火鍋 with Alan, MC and everyone else, I passed by this house...

Isn't it cute? It makes me miss all the good times with the girls and the M'sian gang!

There are also a bunch of cute decors around town like this M&M at CVS Pharmacy (the equivalent of Malaysia's Watsons).