Cuatro Cienégas Part III: The Lab

Here at CC, there is no real field lab - the 'field lab' was setup in the cabin we live in. Unlike the KBS sampling trips back at MSU, where the sampling trip is solely sampling and no sample processing, we do have to pack for some sample processing for this Mexico trip. For example, we have to prep for water filtration, spiking samples with formaldehyde or RNA Later, adding chemicals to some of the water samples for chemical analysis or preparing samples that are to be frozen in a dry shipper. There has to be lots of think ahead in terms of the types of samples to collect, number of replicates, number of items required and the amount of chemicals.

They already had a large amount of items here but when the second team came (I was part of the second team), we still had to bring 5 action packers filled with all kinds of lab goodies and a dry shipper (the dry shipper amazes me! It was charged on the last week of May and it is still holding at -80C today, June 15).

The project I will be working on has two major sampling 'trips' and two one day sampling trip. However, everyone in the team has different projects and we all look at different aspects of the ecology in this desert area. Therefore, whenever we go out sampling, we sample for all kinds of analysis - observational, hydrology, limnology, chemistry, entomology and of course, microbiology. So it turns out that we are out sampling almost every day. Some days are just an hour or two out in the field while some days everyone goes out for an entire day.

Back in the cabin, I was in charge of the FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) station, which is to prepare samples for FISH from both sediments and water. I have a filter (known as La Flautas) that allows me to filter six samples at the same time, all using a hand pump! A centrifuge was also brought there to wash sediment samples.

There is also another water filtering station where Laura pre-filters water before the guys filter it through a 0.2 µm syringe filters to prep the water for chemical analysis. In addition to that, Laura also filters water through glass fiber filters to collect bacterioplanktons for DNA/RNA analysis. That is our only vacuum pump, which heats up very quickly. Every few samples, Laura will have to move it into the bedroom to place it in front of the air-cond so that it can cool down before continue to filter more water.

Next to the water filtering station is the drying area for all our dishes. Washing dishes here is quite a chore. We have very limited amount of clean water. We buy drinking water from the store to clean out the dishes before soaking it in the acid bath. As chemical analysis can be easily contaminated by lots of stuff, including water, every dish has to be acid washed. This was not as much of a concern when I was working with soil samples but I also did not do chemical analysis myself (except for dissolved organic carbon and total nitrogen). The nice thing though, we do get deionized water for all our washes, field blanks and of course, to make solutions. For solutions, we have to make fresh ones just before we need to use them since it is challenging to maintain sterility. We have limited syringe filters and have to conserve the usage because sometimes we may need to use more when the water samples we collect are murkier.

Our hazardous waste area - all with tags! 

The hall is where we gather to label our bottles/tubes/etc.

Somehow, this trip reminds me a lot of my experience at Woods Hole when I took the Microbial Diversity course. A more intense one. I am definitely getting lots of arm work outs here and learning a lot more about the big picture. Working with scientists of different expertise reminds me all the time that we must be able to relate our work to the interest of the environment and the people in the environment.

Life in Cuatro Cienegas

At Cuatro Cienegas, we (the ladies) get to stay in a cabin at Villas Del Desierto. There are only five cabins there and ours are often the only occupied cabin there. We get housekeeping service everyday, which helps a lot on crazy field sampling and sample processing days.

Love the cabin porch! 

There is also a small pool where we jump in to cool down on super hot days with no wind.

The cabin is located near the edge of the town and during the nights, it can be super dark. It is so dark that we can see way more stars in the sky than I have seen before. In fact, Laura (the lab tech @ lab manager) and I saw a shooting star on the first night that I was here! We also do not have to worry about doing our laundry because we just drop it off at the laundromat and pick it up the next day! How awesome is that? Plus, it only costs 50 pesos ~ USD 5!Interestingly, if the laundromat is closed, we just have to knock on the door next door (the purple one) because the owner lives just next door!

CC is a very laid back town. In the afternoon, while walking around town, you will always see little kids playing on the pavement, parents and neighbors sitting outside to chat, and there is just so much sign of life out here. Simple life. They do not need a lot of the luxuries we have. All they have is each other. My favorite is walking by a house where the older couple who lives in the house will always sit in their porch on their rocking chair, just relaxing and enjoying each others' company. It is like in the movie Up!. Every time I walk around town, it reminds me more and more of the days in Bayan Baru when I was a little kid.

A typical house in CC.

One of the streets in CC.

Oh, how simple life can be. 

But, all of us still have to check our emails and try our best to be on our regular work schedule. Lucky thing for us, one of the house that was rented for the guys, is owned by a hotel in town - Quinta Santa Cecilia. So they allow us to use their Internet.

Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico

My first job assignment - field sampling at Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico, one of the spots featured in The Lonely Planet. How exciting is that? Microbial ecologists typically don't spend as much time outdoors as most ecologists. A lot of our work is performed indoors with a test tube of DNA solution extracted from minute amount of samples followed by a whole bunch of data analysis in front of the computer. My previous experience with field sampling was limited to Kellogg Biological Station, which was very well equipped for field studies. This trip is definitely an eye-opening trip for me! It is always a lot easier to learn about the samples and to think of ecologically relevant questions when I get to see where the samples come from and all the biogeochemistry dynamics related to it. It is also a long one because we have a six-week long mesocosm experiment.

Cuatro Cienegas is a little town located in the state Coahuila. To get there, we had to drive from Saltillo (the capitol of Coahuila), which we flew to from US. Saltillo airport reminds me very much of Kalamazoo airport where it only has one baggage conveyer and you have to walk from the plane to the airport building. I was super glad that I was accompanied by Spanish speaking colleagues! EVERYTHING was in Spanish!

From the airport, it was about 30 minutes drive to the town area. We stayed in Saltillo for a night before driving out to Cuatro Cienegas. The lab had a rented Jeep, which we filled to the brim! Literally!! As the trip is a long one, we had to bring everything we need in the field and also materials we needed to process samples for measurements that are time-sensitive. The weirdest was bringing a dry shipper with us! It felt like R2D2 came with us. Everyone at the airport at Saltillo was curious about it. Well, we need a way to freeze our samples for DNA and RNA extraction.

Surprisingly, all the luggages placed on top of the Jeep were totally secured. It did not bulge the entire four hours drive from Saltillo to Cuatro Cienegas. The drive was quite boring, as the roads seemed endless. It was a pretty sight though, with mountains and endless desert view. It was also fun to see the dust devil, which are little dust tornados.

Once we arrived at CC and unload the Jeep, we went to get dinner at one of the local restaurant called El Doc. Like some Mexican restaurants, they serve chips and salsa as starter. In addition to salsa, they also have this pickled veggie dish that reminds me of acat! I could make that a meal if only I have some rice!

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Every trip back to Malaysia, I mainly spend most of the break in Penang. Kuala Lumpur is not one of my favorite place as there is not much to do there. However, I still try to make a short trip there as most of the college and high school friends are there. This trip, dad brought up the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park located at Taman Tasik Perdana. I completely forgot about this place. When we were kids, we spent almost every Sunday there.

Taman Tasik Perdana, also known as the Lake Gardens, is a huge park with lots of attractions. We used to spend most of our time at the main lake feeding fishes with leftover bread or bread skins. There is also a huge playground and exercise equipments. The Lake Gardens also houses the KL Bird Park, Butterfly Park, Deer Park, National Monument, National Mosque, Planetarium, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden, and the Herb and Conservatory Garden. All these are only a short walking distance from Kota Raya and Central Market, which is where most buses stop. 

This trip, we went to the Bird Park. For some reason, it is one of the park that I don't remember much. It was quite impressive as a lot of the birds are free flying and the park is very huge, giving the birds lots of places to fly around. As soon as we enter, we came across the parakeets and my first mosquito bite! Argh! 

The most common bird is the one in the picture below. They are very entertaining because they have different mohawk style hair cut. They also come closer to us than the other birds. 

Another one that I thought was very cute is the blue birds with a crown head and red eyes. 

Within the bird park, there is also a small lake with lots of flamingoes. 

By one of the river area, we saw this red flamingo. It definitely stands out! After a lot of mosquito bites, I finally got a nice photo of it! 

Of all the sections, my favorite is the World of Parrots, where you can buy a cup of honeyed milk to feed them. They are very human friendly as we saw one landed on mummy's head! 

There is also a huge lake with a waterfall at the Waterfall Aviary. 

It was here that we saw a peacock and her babies! 

Unfortunately, most of the peacocks have loss a lot of their tail feathers. We saw one opened its tail just as we were about to walk out of the bird park. 

It was definitely a fun morning!! 

Nasi Ulam

This past trip back to Malaysia, gee kim was not around much and we didn't cook at home either. So the only home cook meal I get to eat this trip is Nasi Ulam or can be known as Herbed Rice or Rice Salad. 

Nasi Ulam is a true Nyonya style home cook dish as it is not easily found in restaurants or any hawker stall (in fact I have never seen it sold outside). It is a dish that requires fine chopping abilities and patience. It is also a very time consuming dish as every ingredient requires chopping and roasting. However, if the ingredients are prepared in large amount, they can be kept for a few days and the dish itself can be easily put together. 

The ingredients for Nasi Ulam varies with the cook. The main ingredient is steamed rice and a variety of leaves finely chopped. The leaves that are commonly used are daun kaduk (betel leaf), daun limau purut (kaffir lime leaf), daun kesom (polyganum leaf), daun pudina (mint leaf), daun cekur (galangal leaf) and daun selasih (basal leaf). While they can be mix and match according to the likings of the cook, gee kim uses only daun kaduk. Daun kaduk is a wild plant in Malaysia. It can be found almost in anyone's garden and also in various tropical grassland. In ahmah's house, daun kaduk is just right next to the kitchen area. Besides for Nasi Ulam, it is also commonly used for Perut Ikan (fish stomach) and various other Nyonya dish. The leaves simply washed and mixed in with the rice raw. These leaves have various medicinal values and hence, it is more beneficial to eat them uncooked. 

In addition to the leaves and rice, other sides are added to give the dish more taste and to overcome some of the bitterness from the leaves. Gee kim's sides are kerisik (toasted grated coconut), belacan powder (roasted fermented shrimp paste), ground dried shrimp, roasted salted fish, finely sliced kunyit (turmeric), finely sliced serai (lemongrass), finely sliced shallots and white pepper powder. As shown in the picture, all ingredients are finely sliced and some of them needs to be roasted. This is why the preparation time can take almost the entire day! Some of these ingredients are meant to give only a subtle taste to the final dish but I love to have mine with lots and lots of daun kaduk, kerisik and ground dried shrimp. I would avoid the shallots though. :P 

Once all the ingredients are prepared, they are then mixed in a large bowl and is ready to be consumed. 

While it is sort of a salad dish, it is much healthier than Western salads that uses cream dressing. This does not come with any dressings. The variety of spices and leaves in the dish also adds antioxidant and other medicinal values to the dish. Until I can have my own house with a herb garden (even then, if I stay in US, might not be able to find the root for those leaves to plant it), I can only eat this once in a few years when I go home to David Chen Garden. For now, gee kim's supply of sambal hae bee (chilli roasted dried shrimp) will satisfy the often encountered craving for delicious Malaysian food. 

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies

In the past six months, I have been to 4 butterfly gardens/exhibitions! I guess it was having the macro lens that prompt our first visit to a butterfly garden - Butterfly World, Florida. The other gardens that we have visited to see some butterflies are the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix, AZ, Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park at Grand Rapids, Michigan and the most recent trip, Penang Butterfly Farm, Malaysia.

Butterfly World is by far the largest butterfly farm. In addition to butterflies, they also have an aviary and various flower gardens, making it the most enjoyable park out of all 4 gardens that we have been to. We went there first thing in the morning, arriving shortly before it opened (kiasu mah!) and stayed until almost 5pm! Since the main attraction is the butterfly farm, we spent most of our time there and some time at the aviary. As the flowers were not blooming yet, we were only at the flower garden briefly. The nice thing about this garden is that there is a lakeside cafe where we could take a rest, look through some of our photos and get some snacks. There was also a macaw section that we spent quite sometime at as they have very interesting interactions. We also went into the lorikeet section but only stayed for a while because the lorikeets were feisty! They kept nibbling on John's camera bag and seem to have no manners when flying around! :P One butterfly that we saw a lot here and haven't seen it elsewhere is the one that has a huge black dot that makes it look like a bird's eye. It is known as the owl butterfly (Caligo eurilochus).

More photos from this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In early March, when I made a trip to Arizona, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix. It is mainly a garden of various plants from the desert ecosystem. It also has a section representing the lifestyle and various natural resources used by the people of the Sonoran Desert (the desert of northern Mexico, California and Arizona) in the olden days. When I was there, they had the Spring Butterfly Exhibit so we got to see more butterflies! However, the exhibit area is very small, only about the size of our Penang garden. As we went on a Friday morning, there were a lot of kids on school trip so it was a lot more crowded. There are also fewer varieties of butterflies compared to the ones we saw at Butterfly World. Even though there were fewer varieties, I did saw a few that I haven't seen before - the malachite (Siproeta stelenes), a light green moth and one with green and brown wings (this one might be a moth).

I also saw one yellow butterfly hidden under a flower.

We spent a few hours in the exhibit area and then head out to walk around the garden. Besides butterfly photos, there were not as much to capture as cactus are less colorful. We did end up spending most of the day there too because the park is huge and has various trails with different characteristics of desert ecosystem. Photos of this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In mid April, John came back to Michigan for a visit and we took a day trip to the Frederick Meijer Gardens at Grand Rapids. Similar to the garden in Arizona, they had an exhibition of tropical butterflies, which they called "Butterflies are Blooming". The Meijer Gardens have a similar layout as the Desert Botanical Gardens where it is divided into different sections, one of which is a farm garden showing an example of a typical Michigan farm. They also have a children's garden with interesting flower arrangements, an indoor arid ecosystem and a mini waterpark for the kids. There is also a section with sculptures. The butterfly exhibit was held at the Lena Meijer Conservatory, a tropical conservatory. It has the humidity of M'sia weather but much much cooler. We went there on a Saturday morning and as expected, it was very crowded too. The conservatory is much bigger than the exhibit area at the Desert Botanical Gardens but it has a very high rooftop allowing a lot of the butterflies fly up high, which made them hard to be photographed with a macro lens. It is also more challenging to capture close-up photos of the butterflies because the the high density of leaves in the controlled tropical environment decrease the amount of light available. After spending a few hours in the conservatory, we went out to take a walk around the other gardens but it was very windy that day. We decided to go back into the conservatory to get a few more photos. If it wasn't for the wind, I think we could have gotten a lot of flower photos too because the tulips and a few other flowers were blooming. I didn't get as many nice butterfly photos because of the lighting but did get to see a few more different butterfly, like this blue one.

It was very hard to get a photo of this butterfly. Whenever it lands, it will close its wings. Most of the butterflies in this garden is the smaller ones with black wings. However, I get to see a butterfly popped out from its cocoon! When they first hatched, their wings are all crumpled and take a few hours for them to pump liquid for the wings to completely open.

Photos in Flickr and Multiply.

The most recent butterfly encounter is at the Penang Butterfly Garden, back in Malaysia. All these visits to the butterfly gardens made me look for one in Penang and guess what, there is one in Teluk Bahang! Knowing the lack of sustainability in any of Malaysia's public amenities, I had low expectation for this garden. Surprisingly, I find it to be the second most enjoyable garden, after the Butterfly World in Florida. Thankful for the tropical environment in Malaysia, the garden is an outdoor park. Unlike the other gardens in the States, it is solely aimed for butterfly farming. However, it is much bigger than the butterfly exhibits at Grand Rapids or Arizona. They also have small areas with other types of animals such as ducks, snakes, lizards, scorpions, turtles and a pond of fishes. It was fun to see other bugs like the moving leaf and the stick bug.

While we were looking at the moving leaf bug, one of the people working there came out to release some butterflies that just hatched. We get to see lots of different butterfly and a huge moth!

We only spent a few hours there because it was getting really hot and there was no place to sit down for a rest. If they have a snack bar or at least a vending machine selling drinks or ice-cream and a shaded rest area, I think we could have spent a longer time there. There are a lot of different butterflies and other bugs that will be fun to photograph. It is definitely worth going back. Next time, will go first thing in the morning when the butterflies are not as active and on a weekday.

More photos in Flickr and Multiply!

Benihana

Yippee, I finished my last class!! The crazy busy semester is done! Now I can start looking forward to going home and spending time with my family - in exactly two weeks, I'll be at home with mum, dad and ahmah!! For now, got another experiment to work on. Soil sampling on the only sunny day this week - Tuesday. Spring is really here! The rain is getting more frequent, flowers are blooming, the greens are coming back!

Got a bunch of photos from AZ and John's last trip here to MI that I haven't shared. Since it is raining outside and I can't go out to get more photos, I'll share the photos and videos I already have.

The last night I was in Arizona, we went to a Japanese cuisine restaurant, Benihana. It is a chain restaurant but I have had different good experience both times that I went. The first time I went to Benihana was in Florida, when we celebrated John's birthday.

It is a teppanyaki style Japanese cuisine, where we sit around a huge hot plate and they cook the food right there in front of us. I remember going to one of this back in primary school, after Sunday Dhamma class. It was somewhere on the top floor of Sungei Wang Plaza. We got a very entertaining cook this time. He did a lot of cool moves and I got to take a video of a bunch of them!

The meal started with miso soup and salad. While we're eating, the cook started with fried rice. Here is a video of him bouncing an egg yolk around.

After he fried the rice, he arranged it together into few different designs. Here is an angel.

Here is a Mickey Mouse. We happened to be sitting with a family who is celebrating a little boy's birthday. The cook made Mickey Mouse fried rice 'sing' Happy Birthday to the little boy.

For sides, we got roasted vegetables - onions, mushrooms, avocado and zucchini - and shrimp. I got soooo much mushroom this time because there was a lady who didn't want mushroom and I got all of John's mushroom too! Below is a video of him moving the onions around like a train. They also have their signature sauces - mustard and some garlic sauce. The garlic sauce blends really well with the mushroom!

As for main dish, John got lobster and I got tuna steak. The tuna is one of the best tuna I have ever had!

Lastly, we were really full but I still wanted to try the green tea ice-cream. So we just took one and shared.

Mickey Mouse Breakfast

One of the days that I was in Arizona, we just slept in and had a 'take-it-easy' day. We had a fruit platter with grapes, bananas and pineapples for breakfast while watching Seinfeld. Hehe, there was a lot more pineapple but we used some for the pizza and as I was cutting the pineapple, chi tae jip chui, chi tae hae lok ark. Hehe. John also made us tea to go with the fruit platter. He has a teapot with a built-in strainer (haha, I am sure there is a better way to describe it) so he can make tea from loose leaves and flowers!! I couldn't remember what tea we had for breakfast but I got to try a variety of teas that he had while I was there and my favorite is the acai berry with green tea.

I couldn't help noticing that our breakfast setup resembles Mickey Mouse so I had to take a picture of it!

Pizza pizza!

The only bread meal I really like! (as oppose to bo pan huat, in America, loti teh eh pang ghi)

We took an unplanned trip to Oregano's Pizza Bistro. We were driving home from a fun morning at a Japanese garden in Phoenix when we passed by this pizza place. John mentioned that it is a highly recommended pizza place in town. Since it was lunch time, we decided to walk over there (it is only a few blocks away from John's. In fact, we had passed that place multiple times when we walked around campus) for a slice of pizza but they didn't have pizza by the slice (oh yeah, this is a nice thing here in the States, where you can get a slice of pizza if you are by yourself or with friends who do not share the same cravings at the same time.). But since we were already there, why not try it, we can always take it home for dinner later. As it was lunch time, the place was packed and we had to wait. They have nice benches by their patio section and it was a sunny day!

It was only a short 10-15 minutes wait for us to be seated. While we were waiting, we took a look at their menu so we get to order right when they served us our drinks. We both got passion fruit black tea, which was very refreshing! On the menu, they state that their pizza takes about 40 minutes as they bake it fresh. Not a problem since we were not super hungry. But guess what, it took almost 1.5 hours for our pizza to be served! Although it took forever, our server was really nice and attentive because he noticed that we were waiting for way too long. Eventually, the owner/manager of the pizza place personally served us our pizza and nicely apologize for the delay. He even bought us the pizza!! Hehe, so we got a free pizza! This would never happen in M'sia! Instead of building on the customer's disappointment in the delay, they were very responsible and it was very nice that the owner/manager came out to see to the matter himself.

By the time the pizza came, we were both sooooo hungry we ate all of it! Hehe, I basically ate the first piece in 3 bites! We ordered a thin crust (my favorite! since that is even less loti and more garing!) with pepperoni and pepperoncinis, which is the yellow slices of chili you see on the top.
We also ordered a side of marinara sauce and John likes his pizza with lots and lots of sauce...
I would definitely go back to that place again! I wonder if their pasta or lasagna are as good as their pizza. Oh, they also have super huge meatballs!!! It is like a size of a golf ball! :P We were sooo full from eating the entire pizza, it was a good thing that we had planned to go check out the Arizona Aloha Festival at the Tempe Beach Park. It was so packed that there are some parts where we have to squeeze our way to get around people! (Found some photos online from someone's blog). We took a quick walk around and then can't help trying out some strawberry lemonade as we saw lots and lots of people carrying their cup around. It was sooooooooooo good! Hehe, the walk probably didn't do much as we got a huge cup, walk around the river and went back to get a refill. The first taste, you wondered why is it strawberry (which is common since lemonade typically over power most flavors unless they use a syrup based flavoring) but wait, the strawberry flavor is an aftertaste. Great combination! You get to taste the lemonade then the strawberry.

Pizza Part 2 - We had pizza again the next day! This time, 好特別喔! 有人煮給我吃的喔! I just had to chop up stuff. John made a pizza with the most topping I have ever had on a pizza! The toppings are sliced carrots (first time I had carrots on pizza!), diced chicken, yellow peppers and pineapple with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro. Of course, not forgetting the yummy pizza sauce and lots and lots of cheese!
Ahhhh...the wonders of good food and a sweet bf who don't mind being in the kitchen!

P. F. Chang's China Bistro and Cookiez

I made another trip to Phoenix this spring break (my first spring break vacation!!) to visit John. It is funny to feel that a trip to Phoenix comes so naturally when after my last trip, I wondered if I would go back there again.

So what did we do at Phoenix this trip? Lots!!! We also ate a lot!! As I had expected, we made another trip to P. F. Chang's. They have really yummy food there that we both tried new stuff and was very satisfied with it. We took a nice walk to P. F. Chang's, which was only about 15 minutes walk from John's. The weather in Phoenix was a lot warmer than Michigan's weather a week ago (it was about 15 C all week this week here in Michigan!) and I get to wear a skirt!! It was warm enough that we got a table outside. In fact, both times that I have been there, we get to sit outside! This is allowable in Michigan only for like 2 months. Hehe.

Alright, what did we get this time? We started out with the 'must-try' of P. F. Chang's - Chicken Lettuce Wrap appetizer. For our main course, I got a white fish that is lightly breaded, just enough to make it crispy on the outside, and stir-fried with carrots and snow peas. It is a spicy dish as they stir-fried it with Szechuan sauce and it is simply called "Hot Fish". For my level of spiciness, it was not spicy at all but I like it just the way it is because it is very refreshing. Really spicy fish should be left to the works of an authentic Szechuan cuisine. In addition to the Szechuan sauce, there is also a hint of fermented black beans that is commonly used in Chinese cuisine. I am not too fond of fermented black beans by itself but the addition into this dish makes it unique. Fish also goes really well with brown rice that P. F. Chang's offer for no extra charges.
John got another fish dish - Mahi-mahi. Nope, mahi-mahi is not a dolphin, which it is commonly mistaken for. It is known as the 'dolphin fish' but it is not a member of the Delphinidae family, which is the family of the dolphins. Hehe, unlike its cute name, it actually has a fierce look! The mahi-mahi was grilled with lemongrass garlic sauce. The mild grilling definitely does justice to the freshness of the mahi-mahi because the fish is still juicy. The intensity of the garlic was also just right, not over-powering the lemongrass and the sweetness of the mahi-mahi. The fish was served with cilantro rice, another good rice combination with fish. I often make it myself when I get the canned roasted eel from the local Asian market - Oriental Mart.
Me love fish dishes! It is lighter on the digestion system and does not makes me sooo full that I just want to curl up and go to bed. Hehe. Even that, their dishes are pretty huge that I only finish half of my hot fish. But, we did go out for dessert after dinner. I still would like to try P. F. Chang's Flourless Chocolate Dome one day. To get that, we would have to just order one dish and share it so that we can still indulge in the chocolate dome without feeling too full.

For dessert, we walked a few blocks down on Mill Avenue, which is the main street of Downtown Tempe, to a small, locally owned ice-cream store called Cookiez on Mill. It is a very tiny shop with only one small table. Its specially is ice-cream sandwiches (and Italian Ice according to the review), where we can make our own combination from a list of cookies and ice-cream flavors. We shared an oatmeal cookie with Rocky road ice-cream sandwich. After getting our dessert, we walked down a few more blocks to my favorite spot in Downtown Tempe to enjoy our ice-cream sandwich - Tempe Beach Park, which is at the beginning of south Mill Avenue. I got to take another shot of the bridge for the Phoenix Metro Light Rail, this time with my macro lens! I also caught a shot of the train rushing through the bridge!
The picture of the ice-cream sandwich above is from the second time we got it. This time we got the white chocolate almond cookie with chocolate mint ice-cream. It is a superb combination!! The mint blends so well with the cookie. We love it so much we got it again just before I had to leave on Tuesday. Hehe. Yup, it is really good!

很開心John也很喜歡嚐試各種飲食. 真好玩! 我們可以一起聊些美食的話題, 我也不用擔心他念我吃太多, 或者吃到胖. Gives me a chance to learn how to take photos of food too!

Winter Wonderland

Snow, snow, snow!!! It has been snowing almost all day the past week. Sure make being outside in the cold much more fun!!!
This is the path near my apartment building. The management plow the sidewalks in the morning and not long after, the path is covered with snow again.
At the area where the snow is not plowed, we got snow as deep as 1 feet!! Even the hydrant's body was covered with snow!!On the first few days, the snow was only lightly covering the path and on campus, they did a good job at removing it before everyone get to campus. The picture below is at the sidewalk near the building where my lab is. I thought the footsteps below is pretty interesting. Clearly, it was two people walking towards different direction. I wondered if they were walking along this path at the same time, if they did, did they know each other? If they don't, did they still look up and acknowledge each other? If they didn't, were they rushing to finish that assignment that is due in 2 hours? Hehe, it can be pretty fun to let our imagination run wild sometimes! I would say that these two person did not cross path but were quietly enjoying the peace on campus while walking to their first job schedule in the morning, just before the student rush to morning class starts.
The river on campus is mostly frozen too except for a small area near the admin building, one of my favorite area on campus. That is where the ducks hang out too, even now that it is freezing cold.
But now that it is so cold out, not many people goes to the river to hang out and feed the ducks. They must be really hungry because anyone who goes near the river, they will come close, hoping that they will be fed. When John and I went by the river just before Christmas, we sat by the stairs and it felt like they were going to eat me up!
All the trees on campus are covered with snow. Somehow the snow gives them a character because now they look like animated trees walking all around campus. :P
Besides human footsteps, there are tons of different types of footsteps on the snow. It is always fun to try to guess who made them. This one must be a rabbit one.
Let it snow, let it snow!!